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SERMON BRIEFS 



BY 
HENRY WARD BEECHER 

Transcribed from the Author's Manuscript Notes of Unpublished 
Discourses, and Edited, by 

JOHN R. HOWARD and TRUMAN J. ELLINWOOD 



THE PILGRIM PRESS 
New York BOSTON Chicago 



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By J. R. Howard and T. J. Ellinwood 



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SAMUEL USHER 

176 TO 184 HIGH STREET 

BOSTON, MASS. 



PREFACE 



These " Sermon Briefs " are transcriptions of Mr. 
Beecher's own manuscript notes for discourses preached 
mostly during the years 1864-65. Full stenographic 
reports of these were made at the time by Mr. Ellinwood 
in the course of his regular duties at Plymouth Church. 
Mr. Beecher turned his notes over to Mr. Ellinwood for 
reference in completing his reports, which, however, were 
never written out, and have remained unpublished. 

So notable a master of pulpit discourse as Phillips 
Brooks, in speaking of the Plymouth pastor just after 
his death, characterized him as " the great preacher, the 
greatest preacher in America, — and the greatest preacher 
means the greatest power in the land." 

It has seemed worth while, in view of the peculiar 
freshness and aptness of Mr. Beecher's methods of pre- 
senting truth, to transcribe and publish some of these 
frameworks of discourse which he used for his preaching. 
" Freshness " they will always have, and timeliness, for 
they deal with the things that abide, — the nature of 
man, the nature of God as manifested through Jesus 
Christ, and the mutual relations between the Father and 
his children. To quote Bishop Brooks again: " Great 
services did he render to theology. It is not that we are 
discovering new truths, but that what lay dead and dry 
in men's souls has awakened. The Spirit of the Lord 
has been poured into humanity, and no one more than Mr. 
Beecher has helped to this, pouring his great insight and 
sympathy and courage out upon the truths which God 
gave him to deliver. A great leader in the theological 
world, believing in the Divine Christ and in eternal hope 
for mankind." 



4 SERMON BRIEFS 

The Briefs here published are selected from a large number 
in hand. They are fuller than the notes of Mr. Beecher's 
sermons in later life; more fragmentary than his earlier 
ones. No set of notes, however, would represent the ser- 
mon actually preached, because often the speaker would 
become interested in elaborating some thought that stimu- 
lated him afresh as he unfolded it, and he would have con- 
sumed his time without completing his plan. This troubled 
him little, since he aimed not at sermons, but at men; his 
peroration or final appeal, ready in his mind, would con- 
clude his discourse as effectively as if his original sketch 
had been adhered to. Sometimes he wrote quite fully, 
— usually in introduction ; sometimes he discoursed with 
lowered eyes as if reading, when little or nothing was 
written. This was especially the case when themes of 
deep emotion were dealt with — notably on the occasion 
of his grand discourse in Plymouth Church on the Sunday 
after the death of Lincoln. He did not trust himself to 
look at his audience ; the swollen stream of thought and 
feeling must flow to its appointed end without breaking its 
banks ; he seemingly read the whole — from a manuscript 
of a few sentences. 

Mr. Beecher's way of letting his sermon " simmer " in 
his mind, not daring to commit it to paper until early on 
Sunday morning, when he rapidly dashed off his preaching 
notes for almost immediate use in the pulpit, resulted in 
considerable irregularity of form, many abbreviations, 
hints, and significant but incomplete phrases. The prepa- 
ration of these notes for other eyes than his own, therefore, 
has demanded not only careful transcription, but in many 
places studious interpretation, and now and then final 
omission of undecipherable chirography. 

Despite such imperfections, however, it is believed by 
the Editors that these outlines will serve to show how and 
why such preaching laid hold on men, and will bring in- 
spiration to many. 

Brooklyn, N. Y., September, 1905. 



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CONTENTS 



THE SUMMONS 

Calls to men, setting forth the dangers of the worldly life, and 

reasons for following Christ. 

Page 

The Lower and the Higher Life 9 

Man and Beast 14 

Nature, Character, and Conduct 19 

Evil and Good 24 

The End and Aim of Life 29 

Ethics, or Love and Faith? . 32 

Self-Harm 35 

A Bad Man 39 

Hearing and Doing 43 

The Deceitfulness of Riches 46 

Equity, the Law of Wealth 50 

Imaginary Hindrances 56 

Use and Worth of Resolutions 59 

What is Christianity? 63 

Excuses for Evil-Doing 67 

How to Break off Sins 71 

Personal Reformation 74 

To the Uttermost 79 

Near, yet Afar Off 82 

God in Man 86 

Lost Opportunities 90 

Counting the Cost 94 

What is Religion? . . . , 97 

Christ's Faith in Man 102 

THE WARFARE 

Discourses relating to the difficulties and hindrances, the helps 
and delights, in pursuance of the Christian life. 

Man's Heart-House 109 

Religion demands Earnestness 113 

5 



6 SERMON BRIEFS 

Page 

A Forecast 116 

Working out Salvation 119 - 

As a Little Child 122 

Christ in You 126 

Besetting Sins 132 ■-' 

The Gospel of Labor 136 **' 

godlikeness 140 *• 

sound-mindedness i43 

Fidelity to Conviction 147 

Growth in Graces 150 

Care 156 

Christian Patience 163 *" 

God's Will 166 

Acting — and Waiting 171 

The Love of Praise 175 

Sordidness rebuking Love 179 

A Whole Man 183 

Modern Apostasy 188 

Belief and Toleration 192 

Abiding in Christ 196 

True Glorying 200 

Unconscious Influence 203 ! 

Exaltation Bound to Service 206 

THE GREAT COMMANDER 

The Divine Element in human affairs, as manifested through 
the influence of Christ and the Holy Spirit. 

A View of God 213 

Finding God 219 i 

Man's Soul and God's Spirit 223 ^ 

Divine Power of Sympathy 228 

Christ, the Ideal 233 

Worth and Grounds of Hope 238^ 

Regulating Power of the Divine Life 243 

The Help in Trouble 247 ' 

Trusting God 252 

Peace in Conflict 256 

God, for Us , 259 



I 

THE SUMMONS 



I 

The LOWER and the HIGHER LIFE 



When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon 
and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou 
art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? 
For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast 
crowned him with glory and honour. — Psalm 8: 3-5. 

One class of minds habitually see what is weak and 
sinful in human life, and speak of man in terms almost 
contemptuous. Others are never done celebrating the 
power and dignity of human nature. Sometimes these 
two classes of persons suppose themselves antagonistic. 
They are only partialists. Both views are true. Each 
looks upon one class of facts only. Scripture harmonizes 
them. Man is grand, and insignificant. He is full of 
waste and corrupt elements, and full of divine and 
eternal values. Eulogy or depreciation alone will not 
measure or describe a creature of two worlds, of a com- 
plex nature, of comprehensive alliances, and of eternal 
duration. 

All the way through, from beginning to end, the paral- 
lel and contrast exist, of sublime greatness and of pitiable 
insignificance. 

The contemplation of this double and contrasted 
nature is profitable not merely for sentiment. It may be 
made to have the most important practical bearings, and 

9 



JO SERMON BRIEFS 

to quicken the life and actions of each day. For which 
purpose, let us consider some elements of human life. 

I. Of all the animal kingdom none begins so weak and 
remains feeble so long as the human race. Many of 
the animal creatures are born perfect; others have but 
a few days of infancy, etc. Man is in infancy for years. 
On the other hand, nothing else in its maturity reaches 
so far up toward strength in all its various kinds. Man 
is the weakest of all creatures at first, and the most 
potent at last. 

II. In single physical endowments man is surpassed 
by many animals: in leaping, by insects; in flying, by 
birds; in power, by the lion; in patient strength, by the 
ox; in speed, by the horse; in mere instinct, by many 
animals. And yet, so soon as man comes to the exertion 
of mind, he finds easily more than an equivalent for all 
these inferiorities, and rises in comprehensive supremacy, 
without a thought, to the head of the kingdom. 

III. Man in conflict with the physical laws of the globe 
is insignificant indeed. He can neither call nor remand 
light; retard nor hasten the seasons; invoke rain nor 
stay the unmerciful clouds ; he cannot shut up the wind 
in its palaces, nor unlock and bring forth. Fire, water, 
air, light, electricity, are by nature his masters. But 
by his obedience to their laws, they all change to servants. 
He controls the wind to his purposes. He teaches the 
lightning with finest foot to tread his wires, and with its 
finger of flame to write his messages. He conforms to 
the seasons, and they pay their revenues like vassals. 

If he be proud, then let him reflect that he is crushed 
before the worm. Any single one, and how complete his 



The LOWER and the HIGHER LIFE U 

control; but by multitude they defy him. They con- 
sume his grain; eat up his flowers; pierce his roots; 
strip bare of leaves his trees; puncture his fruits, mak- 
ing them nurseries for young enemies. 

How manageable a drop of water! but how formid- 
able a body of water in the form of mist or steam! 

IV. The feebleness of man as an individual, compared 
with men in society and as a race. Grandeur of human 
enterprise. Look at the wonderful management of 
commerce, by which latitudes interchange their fruits, 
and all the earth serves each separate spot; whereby 
summer feeds winter, and the tropics make love to cooler 
zones, and are themselves in turn cheered and refreshed. 
Any single man stepping out of line is very poor, as in 
an army. Society is strong, but the individual man in 
it is insignificant. 

V. Let us approach higher relations. Man, as a crea- 
ture of this world, runs through a rapid series of steps, 
beginning and ending in weakness; subject to disease, 
pain, thwartings, overthrow, poverty, and death. The 
other man, related to the spiritual world, is one whom 
nothing can touch. No eye can see his thoughts; no 
tyrant imprison his soul ; no disease lay low his spiritual 
body. He is supreme. 

As a creature of years, how feeble, afflicted, pitiable! 
As a creature without end, immortal, how strong, unpierce- 
able, and sublime! As a son of man, full of inconsist- 
encies, ideals and failures, aspirations and vulgarities, 
happiness and woe. As a son of God, steadfast and im- 
movable, a king in disguise, rich though poor, making 
squalor splendid and filling life full of glorious contra- 
dictions. 



n SERMON BRIEFS 

" As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet 
making many rich ; as having nothing, and yet possess- 
ing all things." — 2 Cor. 6: 10. 

Man contrasted with himself has dark hours and weak- 
ness, luminous hours and victory. Friendless and de- 
serted, he is one whom angels tend. A suppliant and 
pauper, he is protected of God. Having nothing, he is 
heir to everything. Dying deaths daily, he shall never die. 

Look a little further. Consider the double truth of 
dying : 

" It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is 
sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body." — 
1 Cor. 15: 44- 

Here there is a seeming end, which, beyond, is the 
glorious dawn and beginning. Hence the grandeur of 
our text. {Read.) 

Turning from description of these elements, may 
we not derive some profit from them? 

I. On which shall men build, the insignificant or the 
eternal? For which part of his endowment shall he live? 

Bin. The rich fool in the parable. Luke 12: 16-20. 

II. Which shall men value? Which shall they seek 
first and most? Which, when in conflict, shall yield? 
Which shall be insured against risks? 

III. We are prone to expend pride, approbativeness, 
and desire on that which is transient. 

Illn. Man spending his money in New York. 

IV. How much of the lower may be added to men 
without augmenting manhood! and how much may be 
taken away from them without diminishing it! 



The LOWER and the HIGHER LIFE J3 

V. Too apt are we, in the turmoil and conflict of life, 
in incessant temptation, in private and in public, to 
follow the transient because it is visible, and to reject 
the permanent and potential because it is invisible, and 
subject only to Faith, which few have. 

VI. What is the remedy for a sense of the shortness of 
human life, the weakness of men, and premature death? 

Bin. Thanksgiving Day: family coming back home. 
God has a great house; this world only one room, etc. 
Vision of future to glorify the present. 



II 

MAN and BEAST 



For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even 
one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, 
they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above 
a beast: for all is vanity. — Eccl. 3: 19. 

This remarkable book presents the course of philo- 
sophical speculation in ancient days. It shows that the 
problems of our day are not new. 

The origin of things; 

The nature of evil; 

The place of man in the universe; 

Whether there is any other government than nature; 

The contrasts, conditions, and catastrophes which 
fall out under mere natural law — are all discussed. 

The passage in hand arises from a consideration of 
the condition of man without hope of another life. 

1. At that day the discussion must have been em- 
pirical; material slender; knowledge small. 

2. It has arisen in our day with an unexpected force. 
It is the question whether man is anything more than 
the extension, the full unfolding, or blossom, of the 
animal kingdom below. 

I propose to consider this question: What pre- 
eminence has man over the beast? 

I. Man has great preeminence in physical organization. 



MAN and BEAST 15 

i. Superiority in single qualities, such as quickness, 
flying, strength, special instincts, do not amount, on the 
whole, to any particular advantage. 

2. No other creature has such combination and har- 
mony of physical forces as man. Range of industry 
and adaptation to all work, climates, conditions, show 
wonderful adaptability. Usableness of man transcends 
everything in the kingdom below him. Each animal 
can do single things, but man is a creator. 

a. Changed the condition of the globe and almost 
of climates. 

b. Covered the earth with cities and made dwell- 
ings so common that they might seem a part of 
the crust of the earth shoved up into form and 
crystallised. 

c. Organized beauty into all the processes of life; 
and besides, the kingdom of art has garnished all 
functions and materials with beauty. 

d. Inventions, tools, machines. What has a fish 
compared to man's steamship? What has a bird 
compared to man's locomotive railway? 

e. One may put man's single organ, the hand, 
against all the peculiar elements in the animal 
kingdom. 

/. Amount of vital force. No other animal en- 
dures so much and labors so long. 
Illn. Cavalry inferior to infantry. 
This is the difference of nerve, which is the best 
element; the amount, quality, and distribution of cere- 
bral and nervous system. It is this that gives vitality, 
force, endurance, aside from its mental developments. 
It is the magnetic battery of life. 

II. Man's interior superiority to the animal kingdom; 



i6 SERMON BRIEFS 

i. In thinking power. 

2. In refinement and sweetness of affection. 

3. In social relationships, purity, civil society. 

4. In moral sentiment, right and wrong, worship, 
subordination, hope, mirth, joy. Animals have exhila- 
ration while young; only men have joy. 

5. To all this is to be added the prolongation of life 
in higher conditions, in another stage of being and world, 
by which faith, a new light, falls upon the whole of this life : 

God's existence and government; 
Christ such a presentation as man can take hold of; 
All consolations, foregleams, joys of Christian life. 
Surely, the question need not be put, In what hath 
man preeminence over a beast? 

III. The real question, not one of organization and 
capacity, but of practical results. 

1. Do the great mass of mankind make any use of 
their advantages so as to be, in fact, much better than 
the beasts? 

The Indians. 

The African hordes. 

The Asiatics. 

The effeminate Orientals. 

Such enormous machinery; little product! 

2. In Christian lands are there not on every hand 
and in great numbers those who, with all their oppor- 
tunities, rise but little above the average productive- 
ness of the animal kingdom? 

a. Consider how many spend the whole force of 
life simply to maintain life, not to maintain and use 
it as a creative force. 

b. How many derive all flavor of life from pure 
animalism! 



MAN and BEAST \ 7 

c. How many are wasters, moths! Society is 
full of hangers-on : 

All the men that are lazy and that others 
support ; 

All that filch from others' industry; 

All that steal and swindle; 

All that live by knavery and tax all moral men. 

d. Destroyers of men. As animals feed on ani- 
mals, so men on men. Destroying them by vio- 
lence; by inciting and feeding the passions. New 
York City is controlled by millions of capital which 
is invested in liquor and lust. 

e. Turn to the other extreme — to butterflies 
instead of beasts. Turn to the frivolous who have 
no use for any part of themselves but tattle, and 
who live and die in insipid ease. 

/. How many live mainly upon the lower and 
animal faculties, without greatly unfolding, or 
productively employing the faculties which sepa- 
rate them from the lower kingdom! 

SOME QUESTIONS 

1. Am I contributing only to the animal side of life? 
Anything to the intellectual? Anything to the social 
and refining? Anything to the moral? 

II. Am I living without an aim? or, if I have an 
ambition, what relation does it bear to manliness? 

III. Is the ordinary way of estimating the guilt of 
a vulgar and dissipated life at all adequate? 

i. Not simply against law. 

2. It is a degradation of the superior to the inferior. 

3. It is a perversion of being. 



J8 SERMON BRIEFS 

IV. What is the reality of an easy, good-natured use 
of life? 

Illn. Estate running out — wants care. Ignorant 
heir. Books molding. Pictures, priceless — Titians, 
Correggios, Murillos, Raphaels — to him nothing. Walls 
crumbling. All going to decay. 

How far out was the Preacher of this ancient book 
when he cried: " Who knoweth the spirit of man that 
goeth upward and the spirit of the beast that goeth 
downward to the earth? " Who among us in this day 
of greater light may escape his declaration of despair — 
" All is vanity " ? 



m 

NATURE, CHARACTER, and CONDUCT 



Who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou 
that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost 
thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? — i Cor. 4:7. 

Men assume two pleas in regard to the facts of their 
natural constitution: First, that they deserve all the 
credit for the good that is in them; second, that they 
deserve none of the blame for the evil, which results from 
a constitutional faculty. The former we considered 
this morning. We propose this evening to remark upon 
the efforts of men to release themselves from a sense 
of responsibility for conduct and character by pleading 
the force of their nature. 

This species of fatality is partly a result of feeling, 
and partly a reflection upon facts. Men of impetuous 
and powerful tendencies are borne on so violently by 
their feelings that they pronounce them irresistible. 
Ancients called it being impelled by Fate. In modern 
times it has often been called a temptation of the devil, 
which is supposed to overcome all resistance; later it 
was called necessity; and still more recently, since the 
prevalence of a mental philosophy distinct enough to be 
comprehended by common people, it is regarded as a 
necessity of faculty. 

It is argued, first, that all human action is derived 
from combinations of a man's faculties; second, that 

19 



20 SERMON BRIEFS 

these are a part of his organization, their power being 
fixed and determined without human volition; and, 
third, that where the good faculties are predominantly 
strong a man is easily virtuous, but that where the evil 
faculties are by nature intense and overbearing, men 
are, as it were, fated to do evil. 

Thus, it is said that if a man have a largely developed 
animal nature, without balance of moral faculty, he 
cannot help himself; that if he have large destructive- 
ness and combativeness, quarreling and cruelty are 
necessary; that if he have large caution and secretive- 
ness, he will lie and deceive by the necessity of his organ- 
ization; and that if he is acquisitive and secretive, 
without conscience, he will rob and steal. 

This view is charged by some to phrenology and to 
the whole school of physical mental philosophy, who 
make mental acts depend upon physical organization; 
but it is as old as human nature, as shown by the follow- 
ing passage from the seventh chapter of Jeremiah, the 
ninth and tenth verses: 

" Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear 
falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods 
whom ye know not; and come and stand before me in this 
house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to 
do all these abominations? " 

i . Men plead that a strong propensity in their consti- 
tution either necessitates many feelings and actions, 
or so nearly invalidates restraint as to make one rela- 
tively guiltless. 

2. "When any faculty or power is possessed in but a 
feeble condition, men hold themselves exonerated from 
blame if deficient in the virtues resulting from such 
faculty. 



NATURE, CHARACTER, and CONDUCT 2* 

3. Men plead that when they are placed in circum- 
stances where temptation is strong, and where the resist- 
ing power in themselves is weak, they are not to be held 
accountable for their acts. 

A proper view of this subject cannot be had without 
some classification of our forces. Of these there are 
four kinds, aside from the intellect, — appetites, pas- 
sions, emotions, and sentiments. 

1. The appetites are ordained for the nourishing and 
continuance of the human body. They are the quarter- 
masters and commissaries. 

2. The passions are motive forces, or those facul- 
ties which tend to energize and propel men; as, for 
instance, self-esteem, love of praise, fear, anger, and 
destructiveness. They tend to self-defence, to the 
control of external forces, and to propulsion against 
difficulties. They are to men what steam is to an 
engine. 

3. The emotions include social loves and domestic 
affections, as they exist in those that find their motives 
and objects in their fellow-beings. 

4. The sentiments are those emotions which express 
moral feeling — right, truth, faith, affection, hope, 
trust, worship, aspiration, religious love, etc. 

None of all these is evil in itself. Each one is good, 
thoroughly and intrinsically. The evil must be found 
in such degrees of activity, or in activity at such times, 
as violate some law: (a) of the mind itself; or (b) of 
human society; or (c) of moral government. Hence, 
it is not the feeling or faculty that is ever wrong, but the 
use to which it is put. 

The question then is : Do a man's faculties run away 
with him? Do they control and compel him ? 



22 SERMON BRIEFS 

I. The existence of a strong faculty no more compels 
wickedness than the existence of strong muscles implies 
evil force and violence. Secretiveness does not mean 
falsehood. Destructiveness does not mean murder. Ac- 
quisitiveness does not mean theft. 

Illn. (i) A man arrested in my house at night pleads 
the fact that he has feet and hands; but it was not 
necessary that his hands should undo my fastenings nor 
that his feet should walk into my house. (2) Invent- 
iveness is pleaded by a counterfeiter and forger as a 
reason for passing off a false bank bill or note on which 
he has written another's name; but it was not needful 
that inventiveness or imitativeness in him should mani- 
fest itself in that way. (3) Destructiveness, turned 
against the physical world, becomes engineer, and there 
is no need of its turning against men. 

II. But have men power of restraint and direction? 

(1) If not, they are maniacs and with loss of respon- 
sibility should lose liberty. (2) If it is very difficult, 
that only implies a need of more care and exertion. 
(3) In fact, men are unwilling to adopt the education 
by which all may be regulated. 

Illn. As if children, brought up without learning a 
trade, should in manhood plead inability to earn their 
livelihood by work! 

III. The facts of human society prove that men can 
govern themselves. In anarchy they do not; in good 
government they do. 

INFERENCES 

It is the duty of society, in one way or another, to 
supply motive or stimulus to those who are not strong 



NATURE, CHARACTER, and CONDUCT 23 

in themselves. This is the Christian idea of society, — 
an interchange of gifts so that each has the benefit of all. 

We are yet very rude in our ideas of penalty, which 
are derived mostly from barbaric monarchy. Penalties 
are often merely defensory cf society. Otherwise, they 
are twofold: stimulants and dissuasive s. So, in either 
case, they are remedial. 

In the progress of Christian society reformatory in- 
stitutions will be indispensable to the correction of 
evils, e. g., intemperance, etc. 

While in extreme cases men may be pardoned for 
mistaking, there can be no excuse for one in ten thousand 
who choose to do evil and to neglect good. 

Folly of attempting to deceive ourselves, since we 
cannot deceive God. 



IV 
EVE. and GOOD 



And all Israel, and their elders, and officers, and their judges, 
stood on this side the ark and on that side before the priests the 
Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, as well 
the stranger, as he that was born among them; half of them over 
against mount Gerizim, and half of them over against mount Ebal; 
as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded before, that they 
should bless the people of Israel. And afterward he read all the 
words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that 
is written in the book of the law. There was not a word of all that 
Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the congre- 
gation of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and the strangers 
that were conversant among them. — Joshua 8: 33-35. 

In rearing a people from the degradation into which 
slavery had sunk them, Moses was obliged to avoid a 
wide range of artificial and natural religious symbols 
which abounded in Egypt, and had many ideas asso- 
ciated with them. 

But though he originated another religion, yet it 
should not be lost sight of that the grand Lawgiver of 
the Desert fell back upon the forms and phenomena 
of the natural world for symbolism. 

I. There is in modern times a reaction, from eccle- 
siastical inventions for worship, to Nature. This is not 
away from Holy Scripture but toward it. The example 
looms up four thousand years ago, from the desert of 
24 



EVIL and GOOD 25 

Arabia, — Sinai and the flowing Rock, from Jordan and 
Jerusalem, from Ebal and Gerizim. The temple and 
altar have gone ; but the sublime imagery lives on, which 
called the heavens God's temple, the mountains his 
altar, the light his garment, and dark clouds his rolling 
chariots. 

II. The singular adaptedness of this scene to impress the 
imagination and root the conscience on the side of good. 

i. The plain, the valley, inclining east and west, 
Ebal on the north and Gerizim on the south. U^" Im- 
pressiveness of hills and mountains, and equally upon 
the uncultivated as upon the educated. 

2. The vast mass of people camped down between — 
gathered for so grand a purpose. Levites divided and 
placed on opposite sides. 

try a. The two mountains singularly adapted. 
Ebal, for cursing evil, was rugged, rifted, precipi- 
tous; Gerizim rounder, more fruitful, and beautiful 
— blessing ! 

b. Notice that the tribes that stood for blessing 
were really the best ones — Judah, Benjamin, etc., 
in whom was the promise of the Saviour. 

3. The process of reading and responding was a sub- 
lime liturgy. 

4. No record of the effect; no record of a repetition 
of this act; but there is evidence that the moral sig- 
nificance of it soon wore away. 

O^ 3 The passions of men can be trained into obe- 
dience, yet not by a surprise of the imagination nor 
by the mere whip of fear, but only by the continual 
presence of education, — and that not of schools and 
churches alone, but the education which comes from 
the whole process of society, life. 



26 SERMON BRIEFS 

III. Ebal and Gerizim did not create moral distinctions, 

and moral distinctions did not cease when Ebal and 
Gerizim were forgotten! 

i. Long before — as long as the life of God — every- 
thing was as true as on the day of this magnificent 
ritual. 

2. When the ten tribes had gone, melted, and Judah 
was a captive in Babylon, Ebal and Gerizim, unseen 
and forgotten, still bore witness. There was the curse 
against evil and the blessing upon virtue, for they were 
fixed in nature. 

3. KW* So, too, the Bible did not create moral distinc- 
tions. It only pointed to and ratified, interpreted; 
and if every Bible on earth were to perish, its truths 
would not perish. They inhere in nature. They existed 
before the Bible was composed, and would still stand 
after it was burned. 

4. $W The Church — it creates nothing. It inter- 
prets and enforces great moral laws. To destroy it 
would not destroy elementary truths. They would 
spring up again. They are a part of the structure of 
society. They are elementary to man. 

APPLICATION 

I. As, when Ebal and Gerizim were forgotten, the 
principles which they represented went on in supreme 
power, and good was good, and evil was evil, and the 
curse was on the one, and the blessing on the other, 
though the Levite lips had long ceased to promise or 
denounce; so is it in every individual soul. 

a. Every soul has in itself an Ebal, witnessing 
against evil, and a Gerizim, speaking for good. 
Paul declares (Rom. 2: 14, 15): 



EVIL and GOOD 27 

" For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature 
the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are 
a law unto themselves : which shew the work of the law written 
in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their 
thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another." 

b. This witness is organic. Hence it does not 
depend on the Bible nor on the Church. 

d^p" 3 Illn. What if there were an insurrection of the 
sick in a hospital, declaring that their woes come from 
doctors and medical books! But neither books nor 
doctors make diseases nor cures. Both of these are in 
nature. 

(df The great question with every man is not re- 
specting religious instruments exterior to himself, but 
specting his own soul's salvation. Good is eternally 
good; wrong is eternally wrong; evil is everlastingly 
evil, etc. 

II. Social life has its silent and invisible Ebal and 
Gerizim For witness against evil : 

All its sicknesses ; 

All its jails and penitentiaries; 

All its poorhouses and asylums; 

All its crowds of wasted men; 

The great under-army of stragglers, 

And, on the other hand, to witness for the good: 

The joy that goes with economic virtues; 

Social purity and fidelity; 

Love and religion; 

Patriotism. 

Illn. The Tombs [New York City prison]. 

Woman in the police court. Cursed. And I heard 
it in spirit saying, " Cursed be strong drink, unchastity, 
stealing! " 



28 SERMON BRIEFS 

Felon in cell. 

Murderer waiting for the gallows, bears his terrible 
witness. 

i. Good and evil of society are deep as nature. 

2. Neither the coming nor the going of its processes 
changes this. 

3. Absurdity of modern notion that the Voice of the 
People can make anything right or wrong, good or bad. 

Illn. Had the Levite said, " Blessed be he that steal- 
eth," and had all the people said, " Amen," would that 
have changed God's law of society? 

$W Had the unanimous vote of thirty states pro- 
nounced slavery right, would it be right? 

&T Should the nation ordain repudiation of its 
public debt, would it be justified? 

III. The great elements of civilization must pass 
between Ebal and Gerizim: 

Intellect ; 
Wealth; 
Material force; 
Pleasure. 

IV. Law of nations. 

The struggle between animal and moral motives is 
vet feebleness in the life of nations. 



V 
The END and AIM of LIFE 



But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, 
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such 
there is no law. — Gal. 5 : 22, 23. 

The term fruit gives the key of interpretation. We 
are referred by it to the processes in the physical world , 
by which plants produce the highest results of organi- 
zation. Fruit is the final and highest development 
of plant life, which does nothing better or beyond. It 
reaches the maximum in its fruit. Every part of it, 
all its secret processes, conspire to this one end. Every- 
thing else is but instrument. This only is the reason 
why a plant lives. It is the interpretation of the plant's 
life. 

If the analogy be taken, then the fruit of the Spirit 
is the full and final result of the power of man. Here 
is a being of diverse and complex forces. His relations 
stretch in every direction. He perceives the facts about 
him. He reflects and reasons. He has power over the 
physical world. He organizes, controls, plans, and 
accomplishes. He has power to act socially, to combine, 
to form states, to cooperate and accomplish tasks with 
an ease which transcends individual power. History is 
for the most part a record of the effects produced by 
man. The whole world has become a journal of his 

29 



30 SERMON BRIEFS 

activity. He has transformed the physical globe. By 
interchange, all climates are one. Everywhere dis- 
tances are abridged by speed, and time itself has ceased 
to be what it once appeared to be. He has the power 
to originate mental states, and then to incarnate them. 
If men receive their impressions from the outward 
world, and largely their stimulation, on the other hand 
they have gone on filling the world with organizations 
which represent the mind of man. 

Of such a being it is not a mere question of curiosity, 
What is man's highest development? When he is per- 
fect, in which elements of his being will his strength 
be found? Will he be actor? philosopher? organizer? 
artist? ruler? Do any of these words suggest the end 
and aim, the fruit of a man's nature? In our text we 
have the inspired answer — " The fruit," etc. 

1. What are these fruits, then? 
i. Expound separately. 

2. They are wholly the superior moral states. Not 
negative morality, but positive. 

RESULTS 

i . We see where the true emphasis of religion is to 
be placed. Not in 

a. Organization; 

b. Doctrinal purity; 

c. Worshiping element. 

But in the product of all these, in the human soul. 
These, without fruit, are useless. The fruit is more 
important than the instrument by which it is sought. 
The wisdom of administration is to be found, not in 
history or authority, but in fruit. 

2. The transformation wrought, if this could be made 
practically clear, is, therefore, the point of emphasis. 



The END and AIM of LIFE 3* 

II. Every man is to find himself within and not outside 
of himself. What you are, not what you have, nor 
where you stand among men, nor what you have done. 

Illn. Take the inventory of men: 
Their wealth, their houses, etc.; 
Then themselves. 
Hence, last shall be first. 

III. Here are the limitations and bounds to all action. 
Such persons as limit themselves need no law. May 
not do all that the law of the land permits, nor all that 
custom allows, nor all that our own faculties render 
possible. Nothing is right to us which prevents fruit. 

IV. How shall one gain these fruits of the Spirit? 

i . The question is asked as if there were a simple and 
uncomplex way by which to seek, approach, grasp, and 
then go on rejoicing. 

2. But the fruits of the Spirit are as complex as the 
soul. They are subject to the laws of development and 
education. See Mark 4: 28, 29 (The blade, the ear, the 
full corn). 

3. The means are the whole of life: 

a. All voluntary powers; 

b. All occupations; 

c. All religious education; 

d. All providences. 

e. In this view many of the anomalies of expe- 
rience and paradoxes of life may be explained. 

All that comes as good is not good to us; even evil 
may prove beneficial. 



VI 
ETHICS, or LOVE and FAITH? 



Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under 
the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we 
are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. — Rom. 6 : 
14, 15- 

1. This argument was in form national and historic. 

It referred to difficulties and struggles which, in their 
outward form, for us never existed: the relinquish- 
ment of life under Mosaic conditions, and its continu- 
ance under new motives, — Christ. 

2. To us the same truth comes up under a doctrinal 
form, which is not acceptable to all. 

Obj.: The idea of justification by faith in Christ must 
lead to an undervaluing of good morals, of practical 
rectitude, etc. 

Unitarian feelings. 

There may be a view of justification by faith in Christ 
which shall be mischievous ; but it is not a true view : 

a. As, where the Antinomian declares that sin 
is impossible because nothing is sinful: faith 
nullifies the moral law. 

b. Where it leads to fanaticism, viz., that, once 
in Christ, men are safe by virtue of his covenant, 
not of their own conduct. 

c. Arising from these in part, but in part, also, 
from an imperfect way of teaching which seems to 

32 



ETHICS, or LOVE and FAITH? 33 

put morality in antagonism with spiritual expe- 
rience, and leads men to say that we make more of 
feeling than of right conduct. 
3. The doctrine of justification by faith is not one 
of external government, but of psychology; i. e., it is 
a question of mental philosophy. 

It is a question of the relative importance of motives ; 
i. e., of faculties, in developing right conduct and high 
character. 

Let it be illustrated within the limits of your own 
knowledge, — e. g., motives to industry and fidelity in 
business. 

a. Slave motive - — fear; 

b. Emancipation and wages — conscience; 

c. Partners — self-respect and own interest; 

d. Becomes a son — love. 
Consider some facts : 

1. That the end to be gained is in all cases the same; 
and the only question is, Which is the easiest way, — 
by fear or by love? 

2. That lower motives do not include the higher, but 
higher motives do include the lower. Privates, lieu- 
tenants, etc., in army. 

3. That while it is easier to live a low life by low 
motives than it is to live a high life by high motives, 
yet when it is a right life, by low or by high motives, 
there can be no comparison. 

4. Now, the question of piety is not as between: 

a. Morality, signifying good conduct, and spir- 
ituality, supposed to signify good feeling; 

b. But as to whether right conduct and right 
feeling can be best secured by motives of social 
and self-interest, or by love and devotion to 
Christ Jesus. 



34 SERMON BRIEFS 

APPLICATION 

1. The controversy between morality and spirituality 
is simply a question between a rude and imperfect 
instrument and a high and perfect one. 

a. Savage modes of husbandry; 

b. Modern scientific modes. 

II. True spirituality invariably includes morality, and 

carries it higher and further than morality without 
piety could go. 

i. The world has a right to expect the highest and 
finest forms. We look for high art in Sevres china. 

2. The Bible recognizes the combination: " Created 
in Christ unto good works," etc. — Eph. 2: 10. 

3. When the double motive does not exist there will 
be self-deception. 

III. Question: Why may I not go to heaven by my 
own efforts? 

You may. Try it! 



vn 

SELF-HARM 



He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they 
that hate me love death. — Prov. 8: 36. 

The analogies of divine truth drawn from human 
governments were indispensable and beneficial, but 
there was this imperfection in the very nature of all 
illustrations drawn from human affairs, that they would 
transfer to divine things the weakness and imperfection 
of human things. 

Still further, as human society is a thing of growth, 
the forms and ideas of one age would be outgrown in 
another, and might become even repulsive to it. 

This is signally so with illustrations drawn from 
kingly government. Once, the idea of a king was the 
highest human conception of earthly being. Around it 
men threw their pride, their patriotism, their imagina- 
tion, and their love. That word thrilled the very deepest 
chords of the soul and the best. And then it was to 
some purpose that God was called King in Zion. 

The word to us in America, however, is quite devoid 
of any but repugnant associations. It is abhorrent to 
our ideas of government. It is associated with a use 
of power which we believe to be wrong. The long 
history of kings has not been such as to kindle enthu- 
siasm at the name. All that made it appropriate 

35 



36 SERMON BRIEFS 

once, to us makes it inappropriate. Only a historic and 
poetical use of it can now be made. 

1. The government of God necessarily must be illus- 
trated by analogies of human government, but human 
governments have been rude, and are yet clumsy and 
by their very nature are full of injury as well as benefit. 

For example: i. It is a common maxim that men 
must give up a part of their individual good for the bene- 
fit of the whole. But the true doctrine is that each 
man must seek his own good, that is, his personal de- 
velopment, and that that development demands a 
high condition of society ; so that we give up to society 
less, by far, than we get back, and whatever powers 
of the individual are yielded to society are investment, 
and not fines or taxes. 

This is a true theory. It may be defeated in fact. 
But in any future that is perfect it will be practically 
correct; and it is always so in divine government. 

2. The experience of men in governing is such as to 
engender a sense not only of antagonism between the 
governing and governed, but of oppression on the one 
side and enmity and resistance on the other. 

This is founded in facts of bad administration, partly 
from the lowness and fractiousness of the ignorant 
governed and partly from the corruption and ignorance 
of the governing, who do not understand their business. 

The result is that the associations of law and gov- 
ernment are such in human life that when we speak of 
divine law and government, men too often experience 
anything but pleasing thoughts. 

Let us follow some of the false impressions arising 
from this source. One is the feeling that God is an 
enemy; that, for his own sake, for his own glory, by 



SELF-HARM 37 

virtue of his supremacy, he demands of us much which 
is not needful for our advantage, though perhaps it 
may be good for him. And still farther, that our de- 
linquency in some respects has brought upon us the divine 
anger and wrath, so that God is the one from whom the 
most danger is to be expected. 

Then, there is the false impression that our punish- 
ment for sin is an infliction laid upon us by the divine 1 
hand in satisfaction of some sense of injury or anger. 
To a certain degree this may be true, but not in that 
low sense in which it is ordinarily taken. God is our 
antagonist only as (a) an earthly father is antagonistic 
to the evil doing of his son; or, (b) as a physician is 
antagonistic to one whose passions are undermining his 
health; or, (c) as a nurse who watchfully restrains the 
vagaries and imprudences of a patient, is antagonistic 
to that patient. 

In all these cases, the motive is love; the end is the 
good of the inferior, and the means is the law of his 
organization. 

II. The method of preaching the Law and of expound- 
ing the Atonement has led many to feel that under the 
divine government, as under the human, much of real 
good must be given up for the sake of others. But, 
under the perfect government of God, nothing is de- 
manded that has not its root and reason in your own 
nature. 

The fundamental ideas of religion involve the develop- 
ment of man according to the law of his being, insuring 
the full education of every power and faculty, the har- 
monization of the faculties with each other or with 
relative authority in mind, and the harmonization of 
man with his circumstances, that is, with his relations 



38 SERMON BRIEFS 

to the physical world and to his fellow men in 
society. 

Such are the very conditions of man's own being, 
without which he could not be the man that he is or 
exercise the powers which he now employs. 

There is likewise the highest development of all, — 
the harmonization of man with his spiritual relations, — 
the future, the divine, the eternal. 

APPLICATION 

i. Every step in sin that you commit is a wrong 
against your own soul, as is also every neglect of duty 
and every negligence of growth; while every call to 
repentance has its reason in your own good. Others 
may be concerned, but no one else so deeply as you. 

2. Right living and wrong living are concerns of 
your own more than of ministers and churches. It is a 
false notion, or feeling, rather, that ministers have the 
care of the souls of their flocks; that men must be fol- 
lowed up by the minister because it is his duty rather 
than their interest. If I pursue you with urgency, it is 
a labor of love for your advantage. 

3. In the last resort no one can be safe except by his 
own personal care of his own life. If a man is lost by 
his own carelessness or neglect or willful incurring of 
known danger, it is his own act; he is a suicide. 

4. Earnest appeal for religion in daily life — now! 



Vffl 
A BAD MAN 



But when Herod heard thereof [of Jesus and his works], he 
said, It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead. 
. . . And when his disciples heard of it, they came and took up 
his corpse, and laid it in a tomb. — Mark 6: 16; 29. 

Here is both a drama and a study of human nature. 

I. Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, tetrarch of 
Galilee and Petraea on the east of the Jordan. A very- 
bad man, with many good dispositions. 

What the tenor of his life, an Oriental king, must have 
been, to be inferred from the actions which stand out. 
Being already married to the daughter of King Aretas 
(of Arabia Petraea) he visited his brother Philip on his 
way to Rome. Result: intrigued with Herodias, Philip's 
wife. She eloped. Herod married her. Sent home 
his former wife. Heinousness of this sin. How it fol- 
lowed him! Aretas made war and defeated him. Died 
in banishment in Spain, his proud ambitious wife going 
to him, — a touch of light on a dark picture. 

One might think such a man inaccessible to all preach- 
ing. No; every man has some spot in his heart where 
truth may smite. 

II. Who was John? His preaching Herod was 
profoundly affected by it. 

39 



40 SERMON BRIEFS 

The contrast: King in purple, Baptist in camel's 
hair One on a throne, having at command his armies; 
but John had more power over men. In fact, John was 
the king, Herod the caitiff. 

" Heard him gladly." John's power, even on Herod! 

John's -fidelity. Had John lived in our day he 
would have been roundly set down for meddling with 
pretty much everything. A word for soldiers, for 
citizens, for Pharisees, and for the king on his throne. 

a. Specified the crime, which was most ungodly 
and unpopular. 

b. And Herod's wickedness generally. So did 
it that it stung. 

III. Herod arrests John. 

i. Some political jealousy. 

2. This offense. 

3. Herod was content to hold him prisoner. Not 
cruel, though capable of cruelty. 

4. Now comes the hatred of Herodias and her revenge 
for John's chastisement of Herod's crime with her. 

IV. The catastrophe, and how brought about. 

APPLICATION 

I. A man may have in him at the same time strong 
impulses of good and of evil. 

1. Neither has subdued the other. 

2. One rules, and then the other. Alternations of 
good and bad. Good is good; bad is bad; but in all 
such cases the good counts for little, for 

II. It is the governing principle that determines char- 
acter. 



A BAD MAN 4f 

i. If that is good, much incidental imperfection may 
exist. 

2. If that is selfish, or even self-indulgent, all the 
incidental good is of little value as to character. 

Q^gf 3 It is the secret person in us all that deter- 
mines our character, not the alternative and incidental 
things. 

III. Bad men respect and fear bold good men. 

Conscience has its voice. May pursue them, perse- 
cute, slay, but they revere it. Wickedness rules, but 
thousands of bad men look up to virtue. 

IV. Bad men often come very near to becoming good, 

yet are they bad. 

i. They see excellence of goodness. 

2. They take some steps. When Herod heard John, 
he " did many things and heard him gladly." It would 
be curious to know in the history of bad men what the 
" did many things " meant. Perhaps, in our day, some 
meditation and moralizing; going to church occasion- 
ally; giving money; sending alms. 

V. Herod slew John but John still lived, in Herod's 
fear, or remorse. When he heard of Jesus he shook. 
" It is John whom I beheaded," he cried; " he is risen 
from the dead." 

Men's evil does not sleep quietly. Men's passions 
blind them. They will not see that in flagrant evil they 
start a series of courses which go on acting after they 
have forgotten all about it. 

Illn. Men's good and evil working out to-day was 
put into the loom years ago; the pattern is just ap- 
pearing. 



42 SERMON BRIEFS 

VI. Looking back on these two, not only which is 
holier, but which is happier? Would you not rather have 
been John than Herod, even in his hour of triumph? 
Still more, as viewed in historic completeness? 

Yet the same scenes are acted over to-day. Ambition 
and evil desire still rule men's hearts. 

i. The scramble for power; 

2. The terrible greed of riches; 

3. The lurid light of passion and guilty pleasure. 
Shall men go on unwarned and uninstructed by all 

the examples of history? 



IX 

HEARING and DOING 



But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving 
your own selves. — James 1:22. 

I. Contrast between ancient and modern society, as 
respects means of instruction : 

The disposition; 
The knowledge; 
The means of teaching — schools, newspapers, books. 

II. The most that was done anciently was in the 
direction of religion. 

The Hebrew system surprising if considered in the 
light of its own age. The Sacred Writings were to them 
just what our Constitution and Laws are to us, with 
this added, that literature and history, and medicine 
and art were also included. 

Illn. Egyptian; Grecian; Roman. 

III. Great evils of ignorance not to be doubted. 
There are, however, not a few incidental evils arising 
from fullness of instruction. 

What are the ends in view, of public religious instruc- 
tion? 

1. Moral counsel; 

2. The renewing and reviewing of impressions of truth; 

43 



44 SERMON BRIEFS 

3. Strengthening of moral faculty by training, and, 
as it were, saturating with truth by repetition. 

4. And all converging to " thoroughly furnish " the 
man of God to every good work. 

We may now point out incidental evils to be guarded 
against in the employment of religious truth: 

1. As a mere instrument of intellectual pleasure. To 
experience this high form of pleasure is not wrong, but 
to seek that solely is perversion. 

2. A variety of this is a purely argumentative or con- 
troversial method. As to this, consider: 

The effect on the mind; 
The perversion of Scripture. 

3. The state of mind that seeks the excitement of 
novelty. Some words about " sensational preaching." 

The phrase used to designate unworthy excitement 
or unworthy causes employed to produce it. This 
may exist, but ought its opposite, dead and legendary 
preaching, to be respectable? 

4. The preaching for taste, when men seek and cull 
that which gratifies only fancy — the graces of style, 
its mere decorations. 

5. The preaching of sentiment, even moral sentiment, 
without practical point. 

6. Perfunctory, routine preaching. 

7. The preaching of superstitions, empty forms, like 
telling beads, laying hand on Bible, etc. 

In view of this : 

(1.) A moral purpose in hearing; 

(2.) Regularity of place and constancy of listening; 
(3.) The endeavor to find a response, every day, in 
conduct, to the truth heard. 

8. The philosophy of action unfolded: 



HEARING and DOING 45 

(i.) Mere meditation will not produce Christian man- 
hood. 

(2.) Nor will sensibility. 

(3.) Still less will conventionalism and cant. 

(4.) It is tc be found in essential disposition, as out- 
wardly manifested. 

It is doing that puts these forward. 

a. One deliberate self-denial for sake of the 
Right. — Effect. 

b. One valiant fight and victory against tempta- 
tion. 

c. One vigorous performance of a disagreeable 
duty, because it is a duty. 

d. The sense of reality, of truth, nowhere so power- 
ful as when we seek to use it in practical life. 

For close, see context: " If any one is a hearer of 
the word and not a doer, he is," etc. Also, end of Ser- 
mon on Mount (Matt. 7 : 20, etc.). " By their fruits," — 
" Lord, Lord," — " Every one that heareth and doeth 
not," — " house on sand," etc. 



X 

The DECEITFULNESS of RICHES 



He also that received seed among tlte thorns is he that heareth 
the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of 
riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. — Matt. 13: 22. 

The Scriptures do not condemn riches, but only the 
evils to which they render men liable. Riches were 
made a part of divine promises to Old Testament 
disciples; they are declared to be the legitimate 
result of wisdom, or moral conduct: and in the New 
Testament it is commanded to administer wealth 
wisely — not to disown it. At the same time, the 
dangers which beset the paths of those who seek and 
of others who own great possessions are plainly and 
solemnly pointed out. 

The methods of instruction vary. Sometimes they 
are general, at others, specific. In the text it is striking 
and peculiar. 

Riches are represented as a personality, endowed with 
a malign temper. They are deceitful. We know that 
riches are in various ways demoralizing; that they 
cause men to grow arrogant ; that they make men self- 
ish; that they induce luxury, self-indulgence, and 
animalism. But here it is deceit. Riches are deceitful. 
Men are misled by them — juggled, bewildered, utterly 
deceived. 

46 



The DECEITFULNESS of RICHES 47 

Nothing is truer. No man conversant with the 
world but knows it. Men see it in their fellow men if 
not in themselves. Riches deceive those who are seek- 
ing them and those who have gained. 

RICHES SOUGHT 

I. Once embarked in seeking riches, men make no 
doubt that they will yet be rich. Dreams and reveries. 
Hope is good. But do even half of all that begin to seek 
wealth attain it? Better moral effect if at first men 
admitted that they would reach only moderate compe- 
tence, and so felt that they must make happiness 
depend on something besides riches. 

II. Men deceive themselves as to motives and conduct 

employed in urging themselves forward, believing that 
laxity of honor in their plans is consistent with integrity 
of character. 

III. Men seeking wealth answer their conscience when 
it protests against exhausting and absorbing addiction 
to business by declaring how much rest and time for 
public utilities they will have when they get rich ! But 
very few of them find such rest and time. Most 
die in the harness; for care, like tobacco, becomes a 
need. 

IV. Where there is rigorous economy, and even 
stinginess, riches deceive, sometimes by maligning mo- 
tives of the generous, sometimes by promises of future 
benevolence. But are generosity and benevolence quali- 
ties that can be extemporized? Do they naturally 
belong to age rather than to youth? 



48 SERMON BRIEFS 

V. Riches deceive as to anticipated piety, when, 
having achieved, men think they will no longer need 
worldly instruments. But what is late piety ? A mere 
insurance. It is like late peas, from a second blossom- 
ing, — meager. 

VI. Riches deceive as to happiness which they promise, 
i. Men deny themselves of it now, relying on that 

promise. 

2. Suffer all the springs of happiness to be perverted 
on the promise of the future. 

I lln. A dray horse promising himself a colt's nimble- 
ness when he gets old! 

VII. Riches deceive men's heads who seek it, respect- 
ing the reason of things. They do not find themselves 
respected, and say, " It is because we are not rich." 
Then they resort to slander and censoriousness of the 
community and of the wealthy. 

VIII. Yet more are those deceived who are gaining 
riches : 

i. As to their real worth; 

2. As to their losses, and all that they do not make; 

3. With respect to what will content them. 

In all these particulars, and many more, are men 
deceived in seeking to be rich. 

RICHES POSSESSED 

I. Tend to increase ambition and to undervalue lib- 
erality. Fact, that few men — very jew — grow benevo- 
lent in the ratio of their wealth. Very solemn, in view 
of all their promises. 



The DECEITFULNESS of RICHES 49 

II. Riches tend to substitute money power for moral 
power, i. e., pervert moral sense. Equally true of men 
as individuals and as a class. Riches especially deceive 
respecting right and wrong in public affairs. 

III. They multiply cares and temptations. They are 
adverse to spirituality. ( u How hardly," — Matt. 19: 
23; Mark 10: 23.) Men find it hard to rise above cus- 
tom — their own or that of others. 

IV. Look at the question from the standpoint of a 
dying bed, with the mind clear and the conscience quick. 
Consider in the light of the other world. 

In view of all this, 

I. Riches, then, are not to be sought inadvisedly, or 

without caution. 

Illn. Going through an infected district; army enter- 
ing an enemy's country. 

II. Especially is sudden wealth not to be sought. 
The discipline of economy essential. 

III. Moral and domestic life, as safeguards, should go 
along with a man's daily struggle for competence. 

IV. He who is truly Christian while seeking and earn- 
ing riches is more a saint than the closet can make any 
man. When one is in unbounded enterprise, and in 
the whirl and delirium of business, ought he not to take 
heed? 

u What shall it profit a man," etc. 



XI 

EQUITY, The LAW of WEALTH 



A faithful man shall abound with blessings: but he that maketh 
haste to be rich shall not be innocent. . . . He that hasteth to be 
rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come 
upon him. — Prov. 28: 20-22. 

Of what has New York been more full during the 
last week than of all other things? Of the fluctuations 
in values, the revolutions of fortune, the bankruptcy 
of some men and the vast reduction of others' fortunes. 
Not even a civil war just on the eve of sublime consum- 
mation could maintain its interest in Wall and William 
streets. 

Such summary dealings of commercial law with 
transgressors are not infrequent. Several times in my 
life have I witnessed it, at periods of not far from ten 
years. Young men entering on business life ought not 
to suffer such history to pass un watched, and without 
reaping great benefits, both moral and commercial. 

Note such facts as these: 

1. The first step is a desire of riches, not only sudden, 
but out of all proportion to any equivalents rendered. 

2. Next, the abandonment of regular industry in the 
hope of fortune by luck. 

3. Then, the growth of the excitement until a rational 
and sensible man gives himself up to extravagant ex- 

50 



EQUITY, the LAW of WEALTH 5* 

pectations and inordinate wishes. The desire of wealth, 
in moderate degrees, and under moral control, not only 
is not wrong, but is a means of moral influence; not so 
with the artificial access of greed. 

4. Now comes in the substitution of diseased hope for 
sober calculation. This is the root of gambling. At 
this point begins the " evil eye," — a greedy and un- 
scrupulous eye. 

5. The augmentation of fortune, not by the augmenta- 
tion of value, but by fictitious value attributed. Here 
men think they are rich. At their own count they are so. 

6. The consent to use and help put upon the market 
commercial bubbles, i. e., fraudulent mines, companies 
upon companies, etc. The most ingenious appeal to 
the credulity and avarice of people. 

7. The stepping aside of knowing ones, leaving the 
gullible to bear the loss of stocks which turn to dust — 
and not gold dust, either. 

8. The whole disgustful game of sharp practice, com- 
binations and cliques, deceit and dishonesty — every 
keen, prying, dishonorable act that shall help one by 
hindering another. 

9. Spurious fortunes. Men are fairly confounded 
with the number and size of fortunes. You scarcely 
meet a man who cannot point out some lucky one. 
The inexperienced come to believe that, alone of all 
things on earth, riches are not subject to law, but to 
luck. This man was worth a few hundreds, and in six 
months he was worth hundreds of thousands. That 
man has made money on stocks. He went in with a 
thousand and came out with a hundred thousand. 
That other man has made his incalculable riches in oil. 
The income of that last year's poor man is a thousand a 
day. One says, envyingly, " I would be willing to 



52 SERMON BRIEFS 

retire on that man's income for a single year as a suffi- 
cient fortune." Young men scarcely bearded, with 
ineffable satisfaction, deem themselves " fixed for life." 

10. Now men begin to live as if they were rich. Some 
go to extravagant hotels and rush into wasteful ex- 
penditure through ostentatious and vulgar luxuries. 
Others buy and furnish palatial houses. Others expend 
upon horses and equipage lavish sums. New riches, 
like new wine, ferment, and both are apt to burst their 
bottles. 

ii. In the July meadows, rank grow the grasses. 
The red-top nods to the herd's grass, the herd's grass 
patronizes the red-topped clover, the daisy and dock 
bow in compliment, and all is cheerful, — till the steady 
tread of the old farmer approaches, with stroke on stroke 
of the hidden scythe, when, in one moment, dock, daisy, 
grass, and weed all go down and roll over to wilt in one 
swath together. 

All flesh is grass. In the morning it groweth up and 
flourisheth; in the evening it is cut down and withereth. 

Last week was an " oven." The disappearing of 
fortunes is even more rapid than their mushroom 
growth. Men worth half a million yesterday are not 
worth a cent to-day. Properties called at 250 last 
week are rated at a humble 50 this week. 

0^1^ You will find men bankrupt, ready to demonstrate 
that their calculations were all sound and that if — ah, 
yes, if is a great supplanter! It vexes human wisdom 
and mars a thousand plans. Oh, what a dropping of 
rich men! The whole ground is covered with them, 
like plums stung with curculio. 

In view of this picture: 

Young men, first misled as to the laws of economy, do 
not believe that there is a law. They regard revulsions 



EQUITY, the LAW of WEALTH 53 

as earthquakes, against which no man can take pre- 
caution, whirlwinds, etc. It is desirable that men 
should know that the earning of property is regulated 
by laws as definite, comprehensible, and irreversible 
as any other natural laws, and supplemented with pains 
and penalties, so that transgression and retribution 
are invariably joined. 

1. Wealth is the product of skill and equity. There 
is a fundamental equity that rules commerce. It is 
the law of equivalents. Earnings are in proportion to 
the value impressed upon objects of commerce. The 
two sources of value are Production and Distribution. 

i. Production consists either in bringing into being 
natural products, or by knowledge and skill working 
these products into conditions in which they minister 
to higher wants. Value in general is measured by the 
quantity and quality of the mind force employed in 
production. 

Illns. Digger of ditch; builder of fort. The rearing 
of a crop of potatoes ; the bringing this crop three weeks 
earlier to market. 

This is the law which makes a difference between 
skilled and rude labor; between the artist and the ar- 
tisan; between those who work with the head and 
those who work with the hands only, or between pro- 
fessional men and laborers. Thus, 

a. The law follows the quantity and quality of 
labor bestowed. 

b. It conforms to equity; the equivalent in earn- 
ings for what you put into a service is just and 
right — it is earnings. 

2. Distribution. The same law here. The amount 
and quality of mind put into labor of distribution de- 



54 SERMON BRIEFS 

termines, as a general thing, what equivalents you are 
entitled to. If you go to remote manufactories and to 
many markets, bring home various goods, study their 
fitness to the convenience of customers at all seasons 
of the year, you have earned profits by a just and fair 
equivalent of service rendered. It is equity. The finer 
the want you supply, and the finer the skill you employ, 
the higher your wage should be. 

Illn. Prices of art. " Fancy prices " are a simula- 
tion of the same, based perhaps on desirability of goods 
as influenced by fashion, etc. 

Here, then, is the foundation law on which wealth 
is to be built: 

i. Those who believe and follow it are sure of results. 

2. Those who rush over and across it will, at regular 
periods, be brought up by the penalty of violated law. 

3. This is the test of that " haste to be rich," etc. 

II. Speculation. 

1. What is speculation? It is a venture based on 
calculations of a future market. Except in magnitude, 
all business is speculative. 

2. What is right and what is wrong speculation? 

a. Speculations based on real calculations are 
right. 

b. Those left to mere chance or luck are wrong. 

c. The perilousness of speculation lies in the 
inability of most men to deal with a problem so 
large, by reason of ignorance of the elements which 
go into the problem; the extreme uncertainty of 
them; the magnitude of operations. 

Finally, then, note that: 

1 . Luck and chance have little to do with the average 
accumulation of wealth, Will you venture on them? 



EQUITY, the LAW of WEALTH 55 

2. The homely virtues are the best yet, even for the 
gathering of riches. 

3. No business is prosperous in which the man him- 
self is not built up as much as his fortune. 

4. While laying up wisely here, what are you doing 
for the other world? Its life is larger; its interests are 
greater, etc. 



xn 

IMAGINARY HINDRANCES 



The slothful man saith, There is a lion without, I shall be slain 
in the streets. — Pro v. 22 : 13. 

Repetitions of ideas and phrases show that several 
collections of these proverbs were brought together. 
See 20: 28 and 28: 10, 11. 

1 . A lazy man's reason for not working for the world : 
A lion in the way; that is, some insuperable difficulty 
or danger. And you shall find this to be true to life 
to-day. Says Franklin, " A man that is good at making 
excuses is good for nothing else." 

The lion in winter is Cold; in summer, Heat. It is 
lion, be it hill or valley. The lazy man will have his 
lion. He does not thank you to get it out of the way. 

2. But though this is obviously true of lazy men, it 
is a truth of yet more comprehensive grasp. 

Hope inspires men in things that are agreeable to 
their inclination; fear affects them in all things that 
are contrary to their wishes and feelings. Therefore 
there are a hundred inducements in life to self-indul- 
gence, while there are many impediments to well-doing. 

I. Few start out with a bold and high ambition in 

life. Men go along as water finds it way down hill — the 
next thing, and the next easy thing. 
56 



IMAGINARY HINDRANCES 57 

They dread the difficult. 

They incline to the easy. 

They do not put forth half their power nor use half 
their time. 

Illn. Gold ores not half exhausted in mining opera- 
tions because chemistry does not know how to ex- 
tract. Life is even worse. The tailings, or refuse, still 
containing much unextracted precious metal, some- 
times make up the most of life. Men will say they 
have good reasons for not being skilled: " Nobody to 
help; nobody to tell how." As if rousing up and find- 
ing out for yourself was not the very thing needed! 

II. All attempts to rise from a lower plane of living to 
a higher have imaginary difficulties — lions. 

i. A young man who has been careless, prodigal, 
shiftless, when moved by some new impulse to method, 
care, industry, hesitates and balks because of the lions 
in the way. 

2. One who has become mixed up in company that, even 
if not really bad, is not good, wastes his time, fritters 
away his life, helps him to nothing but frivolity. Aroused, 
he is determined to leave these associations; yet there 
is the inevitable lion. 

3. When one has come into difficulty by his own 
misdeeds, there are two ways that present themselves: 
the way of frank reparation, the way of concealment 
and falsehood. Few men have faith in truth and 
honesty. 

4. In religious matters there seems to arise the 
Lion of Belief. Can a man believe what he pleases ? 
Amidst the clashing of endless differences, can a man 
select, determine, and be sure of truth? 

Men mistake the point: 



58 SERMON BRIEFS 

Not called to all knowledge about religion. Called 
to a new, a Christian life. All that is needful for that 
is within reach, and controllable by laws of volition in 
belief. 

Degradation of sin — need of elevation ; 

Divine favor to help up; 

Jesus Christ the most perfect manifestation of that. 

You are called to immediate personal religious ele- 
vation. To brood over difficulties not the wise way to 
attain. 

5. Lion of Uncertainty. Shall I hold out? 

Imagine a sick man reasoning as you do. " Is there 
any use of trying? Shall I keep well? If I remain well, 
what? Who can tell what he may eat or drink at the 
unguarded hour? " etc., etc. Some men refuse or 
delay to take the means of holding out, for fear they 
shall not continue. 

III. Your being balked of good thus far must end 
if you are to go on to what you hope for. Are you 
willing to make a strife for a better life? If you are, 
What shall the effort be? When? How long? How 
hard? 

God's Spirit and all means of help are on your side; 
take them! If you perish, you throw yourself away. 



xm 

USE and WORTH of RESOLUTIONS 



I am resolved what to do. — Luke 16:4. 

The steward was about to lose his place. It was 
necessary that he should form plans accordingly. He 
did so. I have selected this passage for that phrase, 

— I am resolved. 

Frequency of the common use of the word resolution, 

— exhortations to good resolutions and confessions of 
broken ones. 

Many are discouraged at forming any. 
It is worth while to examine the nature and uses of 
resolutions; reasons why men break, etc. 

I. The simplest form of a resolution is a choice. It 
is a purpose of the mind to do or not to do. 

1. The very method by which the mind works. 

2. The incalculable number of choices, elective or 
rejective, in every-day life. 

3. We can scarcely conceive of rational action except 
through this power. 

4. The simplest choices: a. Those which respect 
single acts and relate to the present time; b. when 
they respect things which are easy, and in accordance 
with our own wish, nature, and habits. 

5. More complex: a. When they include a period 
of time and a series of events; b. when they relate to 

59 



60 SERMON BRIEFS 

difficult achievements which are carried out, not by 

volition, but by education and training. 
Hence, honest persons should consider: 
i. That a resolution is efficient or not according to 

the things which it includes. 

2. That resolutions are not the less to be made by 

reason of this uncertainty, but are to be made with greater 

care and preparation, as will more fully appear from 

II. The causes of failure of resolutions. 

i. Constitutional differences between men as to per- 
manence of willing. Some have judicial and some 
obstinate minds, and a decree or purpose stands. Others 
are changeable, mercurial, run from mood to mood, and 
will is as the mood. 

Illn. Vari-colored lights on water: Fulton Ferry. 
Such follow the emotion of the hour. 

2. The causes which operated to produce conviction 
and resolution cease to act. 

Illn. Resolution to retrace extravagance at the point 
of sober calculation. Difficulty amid a gay circle. 

3. Resolutions made without consulting all the fac- 
ulties. Often only a part of the mind is interested when 
the purpose is formed. 

Illn. Legislature. Half the members absent. Vote 
taken. By and by reconsidered and reversed. 

4. Resolutions fail because the objects sought are too 
many, too remote, and too dependent on uncalculated 
elements to be controlled by a mere resolution. 

Illn. A man enters public life, goes to Washington 
with a general resolution of integrity, etc. Requires 
a continuity of purpose, which is lacking. 

5. Resolutions fail because they respect the final thing, 
without due regard to intermediate steps or processes. 



USE and WORTH of RESOLUTIONS 6i 

Bin. A man addicted to drink resolves to reform. 
Very well. Fails. Another ditto, but adds to it other 
and special resolutions as to method : abandons haunts 
and companions; watches and guards times and hours 
when temptation comes upon him; surrounds himself 
with helps in good company; commits himself by open 
declaration, etc. 

A wise and efficient resolution should include all the 
necessary means, as well as the right ends. 

6. Resolutions fail because men try to make them 
substitutes for education, training, habits. Change of 
disposition is possible; should be attempted. Resolu- 
tion is in order; but the thing is never done by mere 
resolution, only by assiduous training. 

Bin. Hasty speech, hot temper, etc. 



APPLICATION 

I. There are weak and strong resolutions, — those 
of sentiment, those of moods, those of sympathy, etc. 
Bad ones do not invalidate good ones. 

Bin. Iron balls may not pierce iron-clad when steel- 
pointed will. 

II. Resolutions are often masks and blinds to deceive 
one's self, as if one were trying to do better, while in 
reality he is not. Such to be avoided. 

III. Resolutions once made, like engineer's plans on 
paper, good for nothing until you begin to carry them 
out. 

IV. The first step after resolving should be a con- 
sideration of practical means, or working steps. 



62 SERMON BRIEFS 

Four Queries : Whether you do not need to form reso- 
lutions for growth, improvement? 

Whether broken resolutions, instead of breeding dis- 
couragement, should not lead to the formation of better 
ones with better means to carry them out? 

Whether men involved deeply in wickedness are be- 
yond reformation, and consequently resolutions of 
amendment ; or 

Whether manhood and eternal life are not worth 
perpetual and unwearied strife? 



XIV 
WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 



And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, 
evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting 
of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the 
body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of 
the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the 
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we henceforth 
be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with 
every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning crafti- 
ness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth 
in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, 
even Christ. — Eph. 4: 11-15. 

In this passage explicit distinction is made between 
the great moral ends sought by Christianity and the 
instrumentalities by which they are sought; and love, 
as usual, is the supreme test. 

I. The production of moral traits in personal char- 
acter is the end and aim of Christianity. 

1. Christianity not a system of belief. Has its facts 
and trains of reasoning, but as mere instruments. 

2. Not any ordination of a round of religious observ- 
ances and duties, as if there was a benefit in them, 
mystic and inexplicable, as if God had surcharged any 
rites or powers with latent grace, which is imparted 
to those who handle, etc. 

63 



64 SERMON BRIEFS 

3. It is an educating force. 

It presents the model and ideal in God. 

It presents the traits and qualities which make men 
noble. 

All of these are universal, and conform to reason and 
moral consciousness. 

Let us see: 

1. Reverence based on divine excellence. 

2. Love based on the essential loveliness of God in 
Christ. Even deism admits the transcendent merit of 
Christ, and in making him a hero instead of divinity, 
bestows honor upon him. 

3. Toward man, faith, equity, love. See Phil. 4:8, 
" Whatsoever things," etc.; 1 Cor. 13, last verses, etc. 

In regard to these: 

a. They are essential elements of true manhood. 

b. Always have been and are still approved by 
the consciousness of all men, without regard to age, 
nation, or religion. 

c. Churches, ordinances, ministries, may all 
perish and yet these will remain. Nay, though 
you burn the Bible itself, you do not touch the ends 
which it seeks to accomplish. 

II. For the sake of educating men in these traits, God 
has inspired them to employ various instrumentalities. 

a. The social principle and mutual help, i. e., 
the Church. 

b. Teachers of various kinds, for the sake of 
continuity and intelligence. 

c. Impressive acts or ordinances. All these are 
instruments to an end. 

1. Before Christ, these instruments were obligatory 
on the Hebrews. 



WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 65 

2. It is a grand peculiarity of Christianity that it 
leaves men free to select their own instruments of moral 
culture. Nothing can be clearer than Paul's teaching 
in this regard, except Christ's. 

3. This is not equivalent to setting all instruments 
aside. 

Illn. Difference between the voluntary school system 
of America and the compulsory system of Prussia. 

4. A wanton neglect, or disuse, is wrong for the same 
reason that neglect of means of health is wrong. 

But whenever any one soberly, honestly, and for a 
good purpose would change, set aside, or alter any of 
the mere educating institutions of religion, he has a 
clear right to do it, nor does he violate command or 
God's spirit. 

^Wfhe horror of some upon hearing what I said 
about baptism, — that men had a right to follow their 
own notions. 

a. They not only may, but must, or else turn 
Roman Catholic. 

b. Even if they follow " the Scripture command," 
it is their judgment of what is commanded. 

But mark: 

1. The great ends of the gospel — purity, truth, love, 
active zeal, devoutness, obedience — are not changeable. 
They are constant. 

2. The methods of cultivating these are changeable. 

a. Not rashly, not for the sake of change, not 
in negligence, nor to get rid of religious obligation, 
nor in contempt of the light of experience. 

b. But when new wants arise, or new light comes 
with the ages, or men differ through national vari- 
eties of customs, or for any other good and sober 
reason, men are free from all mere institutions, 



66 SERMON BRIEFS 

Illn. In civil affairs men must keep justice con- 
stant, but ways of enforcing it vary, etc. 

III. Men are laid under obligation to religious life, 

i. Not by church authority. 

2. Not from the consent of the community, nor from 
any degree of custom, 

3. But simply and wholly because 

a. It has a direct relation to God's authority. 

b. The things commanded are of universal obli- 
gation on grounds of the nature of man and moral 
law, and the relation of man to truth and virtue. 

4. In this respect there is the same obligation resting 
upon all men, whether " professors " of religion or not. 

a. You are bound to obey God. 

b. To fulfill all positive duties to God and men. 

c. To avoid selfishness, pride, sin. 

d. If every church on earth were corrupt, it 
would not remove a single obligation from you. 
Obligations do not spring from the authority of 
churches, nor do they fail when churches are un- 
worthy. 

5. If every Christian were bad and insincere, the call 
of God to every individual remains, — to grow up into 
a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the 
fullness of Christ. 



XV 
EXCUSES for EVIL-DOING 



A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: and sent 
his servant at supper time to say to_ them that were bidden, Come; 
for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began 
to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a 
piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have 
me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, 
and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. And 
another said, I have married a wife, and therefore 1 cannot come. 
So that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. Then the 
master of the house being angry said to his servant. . . . None of 
those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper. — Luke 1 4 : 
16-21, 24. 

1. This entertainer offered a thing most agreeable 
to men's dispositions, most friendly: his house, a 
banquet, good company. 

2. It is evident that for some secret reason the man 
was not liked. 

They did not wish to be his guests. 
They did not care to offend. 

3. If they had pursued the frank way, which would 
have been a declaration of enmity, it would have been 
inconvenient. 

4. But the pretenses they offered, their ways of ex- 
cusing themselves, were very poor. Had they said, 
" I am sick," or " I am held in prison for debt," or " I 

67 



6S SERMON BRIEFS 

am a soldier under orders," or " My child is dying," — 
but they gave frivolous excuses. 

This parable meant to cover men's conduct towards 
God. 

i. The Jews and the Christ are the first obvious in- 
tent. 

2. But their conduct again is but a type of men's 
universal rejection of God's offers to them, and of their 
flimsy excuses. And it may fairly be said that men 
make frivolous excuses for the evil which they commit, 
and foolish excuses for the good which they omit. In 
general, men's reasons for moral delinquencies are poor, 
and unworthy of their judgment or of their hearts. 

1. In regard to evil habits. How men little by little 
fall into them. What the honest way would be — 
admit, not justify or excuse. 

i. Men's commonest faults are those of language: 

a. Railing, and bitter tongue; 

b. Swearing; 

c. Obscenity; 

d. Backbiting, slander under name of criticism. 

2. Evil company: 

a. That which leads to idleness, even if good- 
natured ; 

b. That which leads to neglect of moral nature; 

c. That which would break up good habits; 

d. That which teaches and seduces to evil in- 
dulgences. 

Excuses: 

(i.) "It is agreeable." — So are many poisons. 
(2.) " They are good friends." — No one is that harms. 
(3.) " Must have some company." — Bad, worse 
than none. 



EXCUSES for EVIL-DOING 69 

(4.) " Cannot break away." — Could, if worldly honor 
or fortune were offered as a recompense. But you 
secretly like your evil company, even though your con- 
science, your judgment, may be against it. There is 
something in you that is pleased by it — pride, vanity, 
lust, — something! 

3. Minor evils: 

a. Bad temper, irritableness. " Nerves." Should 
be controlled. 

b. Stinginess. " Economy." There is a duty of 
economy, but this is not inconsistent with generosity. 

Illn. What if men should plead for freckles, warts, 
limping rheumatism, catarrhs, etc., by trying to make 
them seem artistic adornments! 

4. Doing evil things, though within pale of the law. 

a. Adulterations : — " The customer is well enough 
pleased." 

b. False weights. — " The intrinsic value of the 
article gives fair enough equivalent." 

c. Liquor distilling and selling. — " Others will if 
I don't, so I may as well take the profit." Would 
you lie and steal on such grounds? 

d. Tippling. — " It harms only me." Is not 
that enough? But does it harm only you? 

Illn. One thread in linen fabric rots; whole piece is 
weakened. 

Illn. One strand in cable gives out; weakens the 
whole; in storm, snaps; ship is lost. 

II. Excuses given for using the selfish instincts all 
life long, and not the moral. 

Two styles of manhood: Which will you choose? 
For the lower, self-indulgence is the only reason, and 
that is no valid excuse. 



70 SERMON BRIEFS 

III. What excuses can any man reasonably give for 
i. Rejection of Christ? 

2. Perversion of all moral sentiments? 

3. Subverting all grand ends of human life, which 
should constantly tend away from animal grossness and 
toward God? 

4. Venturing into the darkness of death unprepared, 
without compass or pilot? 

See the coming storm — no captain. 
Hear the thunders — no security. 



XVI 
HOW to BREAK OFF SINS 



[Read Jonah.] 

Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and 
break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shewing 
mercy to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity. — 
Daniel 4:27. 

The History. — Advice ; the admirable nature of it. 
How it worked in Nineveh. Jonah. 

I. Men are not able to go on in sins unchecked. 

1. Their own moral sense is offended. 

2. Their friends, and the influences of Christian society. 

3. Providences which startle and alarm. 

4. Special influences of the divine Spirit. 

II. Man's method of reformation. 

1. Some hope to reform sinful lives by letting their 
sins run out — expect to outgrow them. 

a. Like putting out fire by letting it alone. 

b. True, some sins belong to a special age in life, 
but the spirit of sinning is left behind. 

2. The method of covering up, of undervaluing power 
of evil; the palliating, excusatory style. 

Illn. This is like burning pastilles in an infected room. 
It covers the odor, but does not kill the poison. 

71 



72 SERMON BRIEFS 

3. By waiting for some grand influence, a power of 
the Spirit, which shall do it for them. 

Illn. Lumbermen roll logs in winter into streams and 
dry waterways, expecting that melting snow and spring 
rains will form a current which will sweep them all 
out. 

But sometimes no freshet comes. Then what? 

4. By resolutions. A resolution is simply a purpose, 
a determination. 

(ty Its efficiency depends on the moral quality of 
the faculties from which it issues. Generally fugitive — • 
" morning cloud." 

Illn. Sins are like Indians; resolutions, like infantry 
on the plains. 

a. Too weak, and captured sometimes. 

b. If strong, enemy runs, hides, scatters, gone; 
but he'll come back again! 

c. Must slay, or take prisoner. 

5. Reformation in emergency, when men's sins take 
hold on them. Lost place by drink. Dishonesty brings 
shame. Indulgence leads to exposure. 

a. Now it is only fear that works, and not moral 
sense. It makes no difference if fear is first motive, 
if only it really rouses up the soul; but if it stays 
fear, then remission of the emergency will bring 
hope of impunity. 

b. This was Pharaoh's repentance. The word 
of God uses emphatic language to describe such 
cases : 

(2 Pet. 2:21, 22) " Sow that was washed, re- 
turned to her wallowing in the mire," etc. 

6. By breaking off evil, but filling its place with nothing 
good. 

a. Bad company, but nothing instead of it. 



HOW to BREAK OFF SINS 73 

b. Very active and exciting wickedness, but 
taking on no corresponding activity in good. There 
is a vacuum, or void. 

III. Now turn to God's Word, and see the Divine 
method. Break off your sins by righteousness. Right 
life is the cure of a wicked life. Positiveness in good 
cures evil. 

i. Faults, even of disposition, are not cured by direct 
attack so much as by counterpoise of good qualities. 

Temper ; 

Cruelty ; 

Selfishness ; 

Envy. 

2. Vices, especially, are seldom cured by negative 
treatment. They require a deep movement of the whole 
soul in the other direction. 

3. The worse a man has been, the better should he 
become. He should love most who has been forgiven 
most. See Luke 7:41. 

4. Turn to God. Sin is deadly. The work is great. 
Alone you cannot do it. 

5. Make a whole work of it. Be born again! Be reso- 
lute, prompt, in earnest, and instant. 

Run, as from fire in a house! 
Strive, as in the day of battle! 



xvn 

PERSONAL REFORMATION 



When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through 
dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will 
return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is 
come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, 
and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than him- 
self, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that 
man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this 
wicked generation. — Matt. 12 : 43-45. 

This parable had a primary reference to the Jewish 
nation. It has certainly a clear application to individ- 
uals. The Jews had cast out idolatry. They had re- 
ceived back Pharisaism, which was sevenfold more 
destructive to sweet-heartedness than idolatry had been. 
They had become confirmed in evil. 

But there is another than the historical and national 
application. There is a personal application for us that 
is more important. 

1. Evil is personified. It is as if all a man's sins, 
vices, and guilt formed the essential attributes of an evil 
spirit. 

2. That spirit has by some divine power been cast out. 

3. Then, by a figure, he is represented as wander- 
ing in desolate places, disconsolate, hankering for old 
home. 

4. What he finds when coming back: 
74 



PERSONAL REFORMATION 75 

No tenants; 

Clean ; 

Adorned, i. e., all ready for the old spirit again! 

5. " Then goeth he and taketh seven other spirits." 
Why seven ? It is the symbol of a full and complete 
thing. The Hebrews used seven to signify a perfect thing ; 
forty as signifying great numbers, as we do a hundred. 

" Take possession," not to be easily dispossessed. 

I. Men who are living in the practice of great sins of 
disposition and of action frequently have a remission: 

Sickness ; 

Great calamities; 

Observation of others' overthrow; or 

Clear light of truth upon the conscience. 

II. Men tend to fall upon a specious, but most danger- 
ous, course: viz., a mere abstinence from evil. 

1. When men are harnessed to some business which 
will fill up time and employ all their energy, this kind 
of negative reformation may last, yet only in such cases. 

2. But the scriptural doctrine is the true and safe 
one: " Cease to do evil; learn to do well." To stop 
short of this is not safe. A house " empty, swept, and 
garnished " — a mere beautifying and cleansing of the 
heart is not enough. It must be occupied. 

III. The remission and reformation of men who have 
been free from sins of passions, but have fallen through 
pride, selfishness, ambition, worldly-mindedness, things 
all intensely secular, must go on to active piety, or they 
will stop upon mere pharisaism, — a face enameled with 
propriety, but having no depth, moral power, goodness, 
likeness to God. 



76 SERMON BRIEFS 

Such men often become: 

a. Contented and self-conceited; 

b. Bitterly censorious of others. No man, into 
whose soul the iron of self-condemnation has really 
entered, can other than pity evil in men. 

c. Boastful and ambitious in the artificial vir- 
tues; i. e., church observances, days, and ordi- 
nances. 

Q^ 3 Last estate worse than the first. " Publicans 
and harlots shall enter the kingdom before you." 

IV, But if one who has been sinful in passion has a 
remission, other considerations come in. 
Under these are classed: 

a. All sins of dissipation; energy of pleasure- 
seeking. Whole force moving that way. Two 
elements, vanity and appetite, the keynote. 

b. Sins of indulgence, lust, intemperance, glut- 
tony, and the like. 

c. Those who have lived by the excitement of 
avarice, craft, dishonesty, knavery, swindling plans, 
etc. 

i. Sin of passions works physical degeneration, which 
makes craving for stimulation excessive. 

2. With remission, the current of life slacks. Men 
addicted to intense excitement fall into listless hours 
of ennui by reaction. 

3. Nothing so discouraging and so unbearable as 
nothing to do to a strong, impetuous nature. 

4. Sudden breaking up of evil destroys familiar roads 
on which habit travels. 

Illn. All old companionships. Social element is like 
fire on the hearth. Reformation puts it out. Sense of 
solitariness. 



PERSONAL REFORMATION 77 

5. The sense of uselessness. No place in the world. 
Conscience turning against a man, he has terrible 
hours of self-condemnation — humiliation without 
humility. 

6. Men who have done evil and intermit find them- 
selves under the suspicion of society. 

O^p^ Law, like an armed rampart, defends all inside; 
sweeps w4th destructive fire all outside. 

Society measures men by different standards. Is 
lenient to those who make no pretensions to good; but 
severe when men assume to stand on virtue. 

All these reasons act to make negative reformation 
imperfect and short-lived. 

Now behold the practical wisdom of Christ's com- 
mand: 

1. Repent; 

2. Confess; 

3. Openly go over by baptism from one side to the 
other ; 

4. Do works meet for repentance. 
This is founded in nature. 

1. That is true of each sin which is true of a course. 

2. We may believe that few who follow evil greedily 
have not had intermissions, made efforts to reform. 
We see why so few have succeeded. 

3. To break off successfully from an evil course a 
man must organize a new life. Aims, motives, occu- 
pations, must be open, avowed, so as to involve all 
restraints and assume all responsibilities. The Church 
does not want stowaways, but an avowed company. 

4. A man who reforms and does not go on into piety 
is like a fruit-tree with all the top cut back for grafting, 
but whose grafts do not take. Old wood shoots out 
again, or else the shock kills it. 



78 SERMON BRIEFS 

SPECIAL DIRECTIONS 

i. Immediate and thorough renunciation of evil. 
Clear out the whole! 

2. Let it be known, i. e., if your evil has been known, 
and as far as it has been known. 

3. Set out for change of heart. Take God's kingdom 
by violence. God's help is more than all others. 

4. Go to your physician; i. e., friend, parent, min- 
ister, while you are wicked and are thinking to change, 
not after waiting to see how it will turn. 



xvni 

To the UTTERMOST 



Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come 
unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for 
them. — Heb. 7:25. 

I. A declaration concerning Christ placed as the 
avenue and door to God. 

II. The declaration of willingness to save. This is final 
salvation, and all going before that is necessary to it, 
— pardon; inspiration; guidance. 

III. The reason given: " He ever liveth to intercede." 
Different persons put emphasis at different places 

in Christ's career: 

1. In his earthly life; 

2. In his death; 

3. In his living person now. 

But Christ is a One, and each period is separate only 
in our contemplation. His life carried within it the 
sanative element of death. His death took hold of 
the future; his ever-living state of glory includes both 
life and death. 

IV. What is intercession ? 

1. Cannot specialize without destroying the figure. 

2. But the general thing which mind conceives is 
correct. It is an idea received through the imagination. 

79 



80 SERMON BRIEFS 

V. The declaration that he can save to the uttermost. 

It may be universality that is here signified; it may 
be thoroughness. But whether the one or the other 
is here meant, the truth is that both are included in 
Christ's administration of mercy. 

i. Universality. 

(i.) To all periods of time, down to the end of the 
world. When all science shall be perfected and all 
temperaments understood, men will need salvation 
just as much as now. 

(2.) To all classes of men: 

a. No excluding " election "; 

b. No decrees of " reprobation," except those 
which men themselves execute; 

c. No limitation as to power, etc. " Limited 
atonement" ! 

d. Belongs to all conditions and classes; young 
and old; those that are rich and those that are 
poor. Men cannot be so circumstanced as not to 
sin, to need pardon, etc. 

2. Thoroughness. 

But uttermost may include a further individual idea, 
viz., 

(1.) An ability to save in each case by rectification 
to the uttermost of the whole nature. 

(2.) To the uttermost, as being able to cope with 
the worst and strongest cases. 

I. Let us imagine examples: 

The Saviour upon earth, visible. Opens an infirmary. 
Receives applications. 

1. One, very young. Must be armed against all 
vicissitudes and changes in life. 

2. One aged, and habits fixed; hard to change. 



To the UTTERMOST Si 

3. One extremely ignorant. Religion all a maze. 
Are you conscious of sin? 

Do you wish to be free? 

4. " I am a very great sinner in many ways. Should 
be ashamed to tell all. Very bad externally, but worse 
within. Oh, my life has been terribly abused. Is 
Christ able to save me? " 

Isaiah 1:18: " Come now, and let us reason together, 
saith the Lord : though your sins be as scarlet, they shall 
be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, 
they shall be as wool." 

5. Liar and thief: no one will trust. 

6. Adulterer and harlot: groveler in vice. 

7. Gambler: what sins against men! 

8. Drunkard. Alternations of hope and despair. 

9. A gospel-hardened sinner. This is worst of all. 

a. What I have gone through! 

b. Yes, even you can; but you must say " will." 

II. On the one hand, think of the wonderful glory of 
such a Saviour, and on the other the strange illusion of 
men, sin and suffering rolling on, this divine remedy 
right above, and men dying without it! 

1. How many are longing to break their chains 
to-night, and do not! 

2. How many suffering torments already, enough 
every week to make a hundred deaths, with no Saviour! 

3. How many sick and dying turn to stoicism, de- 
spairing, dying, without mercy! 

III. Christians do not enough believe that Christ can 
save to the uttermost. It would nerve them to nobler 
exertion for men. 



XIX 
NEAR, yet AFAR OFF 



And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto 
him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man 
after that durst ask him any question. — Mark 12: 34. 

i. The scene and occasion. 

2. His question and Christ's answer. 

3. Responsive moral consciousness of the young 
scribe: the knowledge and honest admission. 

4. While the charm was on him he was near, but he 
belonged to a class. His habits, which like a tide 
flowed out, set back again. The exciting cause was 
Christ. That removed, and care and pleasure, pride 
and occupation, took the place of this moral mood. 

No further account. The silences of Scripture have 
in them something impressive. 

I tin. Dropping a stone in dark pit of Mammoth Cave 
— no sound; sense of unfathomable depth. 

I. In a Christian community there are few who do 
not know enough to save them and who have not moral 
sensibility. 

1. Great doctrinal knowledge not essential. 

2. Specialties of choice among antagonistic sects not 
necessary. No man called upon to choose a church but 
a Saviour. 

82 



NEAR, yet AFAR OFF 83 

3. The amount of knowledge for a ripe Christian is 
great; but one can " set up " in a Christian life with 
but very little. 

4. Men know — 

That they are not living right; 

That they are not prepared to die; 

That they are not worshiping or obeying God; 

That a Saviour has died; 

That they have not accepted his service; 

That they have power to do it ; 

That it would be better for themselves if they did. 

II. Men have tasted experimentally enough of every 
moral experience or quality required of them to show 
that it is in their power to become Christians. 

t. Sense of sin. 

2. Repentance in all variations, and change of pur- 
pose and life; *. e., conversion. 

3. Faith — living for the invisible. 

4. Subordination to another will — obedience, sub- 
mission. 

5. Continuity of life and organized purpose — the 
very trait of business life. 

III. Men perform many of the hardest functions, 
experience many Christianlike feelings, and yet do not 
consummate them. 

Take some analogous cases: 

1. First, the practical one of a business man who 
never succeeds. He is smart, does many very shrewd 
things, often works very hard and faithfully; yet does 
not know how to organize these things into steady and 
symmetrical life. He comes near, and yet fails of 
wealth. 



84 SERMON BRIEFS 

2. As an intellectual illustration, take the profes- 
sional student who is genuinely interested here and 
there, but who never concentrates his efforts and so 
never accomplishes the thorough equipment for his 
life-work that he thinks he is seeking. 

3. So, too, in the moral realm. There are often men 
of exceeding good single qualities who fail to establish 
a good character. They enjoy prayers, have bursts of 
worship, show even at times active joy in Christian 
truth, and in the disclosure of Christian experience; 
but they do not coordinate these means of grace nor 
take them home to practical influence upon their own 
characters. 

IV. Sometimes social influences, sometimes an in- 
fectious state of public feeling, will drift men right toward 
religion almost in spite of themselves. They are even 
obliged to resist. And yet they do not come in. 

Now let us estimate: 

I. That it would be easy for some to be Christians, 
and even easier than to maintain a discordant state. 

II. That all the good elements are of no final use, 

if they are not brought to a definite end. 

Illn. Captured soldiers in prison — South — Rich- 
mond — mining — almost out, but not quite. Must 
complete, and make the dash. 

III. An assembly of good qualities may be invalidated, 
made useless, for want of very little. 

Structure of watch : useless without some single pivot. 
Staple to chain, lacking, invalidates all the chain's 
strength. 



NEAR, yet AFAR OFF 85 

IV. There are many men engaged in business which 
they know to be wicked — liquor, etc., or in the use of 
wicked practices in a right business, who lock up their 
moral nature on purpose. Not ready to yield to it. 

V. There are many men living in open or secret sins, 

whose conscience condemns and who, under all excuses 
for themselves and faultfinding with Christians, know 
that they are wrong. These men have an energy of 
moral feeling enough if developed to break their bonds 
as Samson did his. 

VI. Almost saved and yet lost is the most pitiable of 
all deaths. The difference between almost and wholly 
is so little that if men would consider it they would 
consummate, etc. 

The most piteous failure is that by an almost! 



XX 

GOD in MAN 



But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall 
never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a 
well of water springing up into everlasting life. — John 4: 14. 

Then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught, saying, Ye both 
know me, and ye know whence I am: and I am not come of myself, 
but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not. — John 7: 28. 

Religion is designed : 

1. To establish the power or life of man in his higher 
faculties in the ascendency and activity of his moral 
nature. 

2. To make this life spontaneous, dominant, and 
perpetual. 

I. It is no part of the Christian ideal to fashion in man 
a negative excellence, i. e., a goodness which represents 
absence of evil. This is the range of animal life, the 
ox, the horse, the dog, the bird. Man is distinguished 
from these, not solely by the variety of his endowments, 
but by the peculiar fruitfulness and activity of his nature. 

It is man's distinctive character to grow, and he is 
endowed with all those tendencies of force belonging 
to the faculties which provide for that. 

But these being unregulated and acting ignorantly 
fill human life with excessive disproportions and various 
evils. In attempting to set one's self free from them, 

86 



GOD in MAN 87 

men resist and avoid evil, as if that were the whole need 
of human character — not to be evil. 

It inverts the divine order. To be positively good, 
active, and fruitful, is the creative design. Man per- 
verts it and regards it enough to be not bad. As if not 
to hate were equivalent to loving! 

Not to be selfish, greedy, gluttonous, or a drunkard, 
not to speak falsehoods, to be cruel, to be supplanting, 
etc., — what are these? A vine without disease — or 
grapes ! A field without weeds — or harvests ! 

II. But there is a sublimer ideal in Scripture. 

i. Man is to be a creator, of "positive forces, ener- 
getic and effect-producing. He is to think, plan, 
achieve. He is to be the author of continuous effects — 
a cause, full, multifarious. 

2. This activity is to begin within. It is to reside in 
the moral nature. In other words, Christ meant to 
give to the part of the human soul nearest to God and 
furthest from matter the greatest degree of activity and 
power. True religion is the ascendency in the soul of 
the educated moral sensibilities, self -generated, spon- 
taneous, " springing up," and needing no supply. 

III. This controls the ordinary external motives of 

goodness derived from external pressure. 

i. Man is affected by physical conditions. They do 
not develop moral force. Something else must. 

2. Man is affected by the civil conditions into which 
he is born. 

3. By the manners and customs of social life. 

4. By the intentional pressure of schools, philosophies, 
religions, churches, and the public sentiment which they 
bring. 



88 SERMON BRIEFS 

a. All of these are useful, indispensable. 

b. Yet all together fail to touch that which is 
the very criterion — the higher moral nature. That 
is developed, not from without inward, but from 
within outward. 

c. This, moral manhood, comes from the direct 
touch of the divine nature on ours. 

Brooding is one figure; 

Generation is another; 

Grafting is another; also 

Emancipation, as if the moral sense were shut up in 
the flesh. 

And all these mean one and the same thing, viz., the 
power of God to develop the human soul to new life. 

But we are not left in general knowledge. The 
specific effect of God's Spirit is given. 

It is Love. The royalty of love is God. 

The increased knowledge of this as the race ripens 
toward it. 

APPLICATION 

i. All mere philanthropy is but salving man's trouble. 
It is seeking happiness, not goodness. 

2. All social reformations can be only precursors or 
auxiliaries. Society will not generate moral forces, but 
will be developed by them. 

3. While the most popular forces are those which 
relieve and reform men's external state, the highest 
forces are those which are secretly and directly working 
at the seat of moral power: the mother and the father 
(and in that order) ; the schoolmaster and the preacher 
(and in that order, if the teacher knows his calling). 

4. It does not follow that all other means should be 
slighted, and technical teaching and preaching be ex- 



GOD in MAN 89 

clusively used. Reading itself, although voluntarily 
sought, becomes powerless, except men have spheres 
in which this new force is developed and incarnated. 

Cant about " preaching the gospel." The gospel is 
Christ, the power of God unto salvation. 

5. Solemn meaning of our Lord, " Ye must be born 
again." 



XXI 
LOST OPPORTUNITIES 



For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the 
blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance , 
though he sought it carefully with tears. — Heb. 12: 17. 

i. The history of Esau and Jacob. 

2. Covenant blessings. Gen. 27:28, 29. 

a. Prosperity; b. superiority or rulership. 

I. The history of both sides of this episode cannot 
bear the measurement of the moral sense of our day. 
It furnishes us a test and gauge of growth, from the best 
men of that early day, when the cunning of the animal 
entered into the policy of the best men, to the present 
higher moral intelligence. 

II. The fact, at the bottom, stripped of all feeling 
and its color, was that the birthright carried by law a 
train of benefits which a man by his volition might alien- 
ate, but could not by volition repair. 

The same thing in our own experience. A man may 
resign a governorship, he may give up the presidency 
of an institute, he may sell valuable franchises, etc. 

III. None of those pleas which may extenuate the 
act or create a favorable opinion of Esau would remedy 
the matter. 

90 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES 9\ 

i . That he dropped the blessing from hands faint with 
hunger and fatigue. But he dropped it! 

2. That he meant by craft to regain. Took risks, 
and lost. 

3. That he did not understand its value. 

Illn. A man sells his farm with a gold mine on it; or, 
better yet, oil. 

4. That Jacob was mean, wicked, deceitful — a sup- 
planter. That touches Jacob, but does not relieve Esau. 

5. In short, it was one of those cases in which an 
irreparable act was done, one, moreover, that did not 
show its full result till long after, and that went on 
multiplying its fruit of evil more and more to Esau's 
dying day. 

Now the same law of conduct yet prevails. The birth- 
right of man is health, prosperity as a reward of indus- 
try, social happiness, civil power, and priesthood each 
in his own family. 

a. Men cannot void these by a word-act, but 
they may by a course of action. 

b. When they have done this, it is irreparable. 
No enlightenment, no repentance will essentially 
change it. 

That you may know beforehand, that you may avoid 
and avert what cannot be repaired, let me point out 
some cases: 

I. Youth is the natural period of education in all its 
range. The whole condition is adapted to it. Per- 
cipience and curiosity abound; the youth is imitative, 
compliant ; but all advantages which nature gives to 
that period end with it. 

a. Education to industry and skill. Seems hard 
at the time; it is golden. Neglected. 



92 SERMON BRIEFS 

b. Education in ideas and facility of thought. 
No man overtakes a certain something which comes 
from early and thoroughbred training, etc. Edu- 
cation is not a mere accumulation; it is develop- 
ment of power of faculty. 

c. The education of the affections. Stores of 
memory, the very colors of life come from it. 

d. Moral sentiment, deep, religious feeling in 
youth, hangs the soul full of influences, life-long — 
unattainable afterwards. There is to every period 
of life a stage of growth and power of education 
that one may measurably gain by subsequent 
struggle, but it does not reach back, nor have the 
power of early attainment. 

Illn. Delay of train ; four hours late ; has got only to 
New Haven; ought now to be in New York, etc. Goes 
on. Gets there, but the four hours are lost and can 
never be overtaken. 

II. Youth is the period of delicacy and purity. 

Once sold, never regained. May be sinned against 
without being entirely forfeited. By repentance de- 
terioration may be checked and go no farther, but the 
danger is that vice and crime may so affect the soul 
that nothing can ever in this life restore it. 

Illn. Gash on face heals, but scar remains. 

III. But not youth alone is reckless and wasteful of 
birthrights. A man may sell his health by 

i. Ignorant over-taxation of the brain; 

2. Ignorant exposure; 

3. Ignorant indulgence in diet; 

4. Indulgence in illicit pleasures. 

Illn. Plum-trees. Worm at root. Canker on branch. 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES 93 

IV. Reputation. Cause and effect. 

i. When a man has it, no idea of its benefits; like air. 

2. When it is gone, it cannot be regained; if injured 
and broken, difficulty of mending; and if it be mended, 
it is a doubtful piece of reparation. 

Such instances might easily be multiplied, but you 
can do that as well as I. 

V. As a general truth, each period of life prepares for 
the next — childhood for youth, youth for manhood, 
manhood for meridian, mid-life for age; nor can any 
man make up in a later period the radical losses of a 
former, and yet reap all of the later period too. 

VI. The fearful warning which this raises. 

(Cy Human life stands as a witness pointing to the 
future. Redeem the time now! Lost time is lost! 

i . No hope for those who are crippled ? Better enter 
halt and maimed than be cast into hell- fire. 

2. To those whose life is before them. 



XXII 
COUNTING the COST 



Which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, 
and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? — 
Luke 14: 28. 

Neither was our Saviour, nor were his apostles, 
deemed safe moral teachers by the church of their own 
day. He did not take enough heed to usages. He 
introduced unusual subjects of discourse. He took a 
latitude of remark not warranted by approved example. 
And above all, he was an exciting preacher. Had there 
been newspapers in his day, I presume he would have been 
called a sensational preacher, for his sermons did produce 
profound excitement. Men went to hear him that went 
to no other teacher. Men who never dreamed of the 
beauty of religion in the synagogue saw it in Him. 
Where he came crowds gathered. Though his manner 
was simple, and his discourse was winnowed to the 
very wheat, yet he inflamed the people with such ardor 
that both their safety and his own required him to 
withdraw from too much publicity. 

Among so many, great differences of understanding 
would be found. Some would come from curiosity; 
some from sympathy; some from superstition; some 
from ambition; some, a few, from hopes of a higher life. 

It was not to dissuade men from a religious life that 
he employed the parable of our text, but to induce men 

94 



COUNTING the COST 95 

to sift their motives, and to be earnestly engaged. 
Those who came for miracles, for bread, for mere sym- 
pathy in a fashion, needed a deeper foundation than 
these to build upon. 

The figure, house-building. It would seem as if then, 
as now, this was a deceiving enterprise! Before begin- 
ning, how should the owner reckon? 

i. What use he would build for, shed, home, or palace. 

2. Of what magnitude and cost. 

3 . Whether he has the means in proportion, and whether 
it is a whim likely to wear out, or an earnest purpose. 

Let us consider what must enter into a truly Christian 
life. 

i. It is not enough that you join company with re- 
ligions societies and observe their rules. 

Illn. Churches are schools. A man may go to college 
with other ends in view than study, etc. 

2. It must begin in repentance of sin. 

a. This, of course, requires reformation of morals 
where men indulge in known sins. 

b. But it requires, also, a full consciousness of the 
liability of every single faculty to evil — a conviction 
of sinfulness as well as of specific sins. 

3. It must include faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

a. The need of Divine help to inspire strength 
and sustain to the end. 

b. The conscious presence and sympathy of the 
Saviour. 

c. The purpose and aim to live for the life to 
come, and not for that which now is. 

I propose that you should make figures on this subject 
to-night. 

The willingness to sit down, to take time, to bring 
vour whole life under a moral calculation, will be of aid 



96 SERMON BRIEFS 

and benefit. Not thinking destroys thousands, — leav- 
ing everything to society, habit, daily current. 

You should calculate not merely one side, and that 
of the difficulties. Take into view the obstructions and 
the helps. 

i. Think carefully whether you really wish to live 
an easy and neuter life, drifting with the current of 
society, without positive habits, without real spiritual 
life, aiming only to please and be pleased, to secure 
notice, applause, social gayety — without the highest 
manliness. How will this serve you: 

In youth? 

Middle age; trials? 

Old age; decay, and death? 

2. Whether the ambitions and remunerations of busi- 
ness, political and professional, life are enough. 

a. Variable elements of success. Sustainment in 
adversity. 

b. The end of life — its memories and its hopes. 

3 . Those who have bad habits — desirability of help to 
control these destroyers. 

a. Conviviality. 

b. Vices and lapses. 

4. Those who despond, and who need stimulus of 
encouragement and right inspiration under: 

a. Difficulty of leaving associates; 

b. Difficulty of correcting settled evils; 

c. Difficulty of changing selfishness, pride, etc., 
to the higher and finer grade of life-motives. 

tiW Count the cost — not only of building a Christian 
character and life, but also of not building! 



xxm 

WHAT IS RELIGION? 



Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things 
are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, 
whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; 
if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these 
things. — Phil. 4: 8. 

I am impressed, in reading this passage, with the scope 
of religion. It is not merely a kind of excellence, but 
all kinds. It is not only a degree of excellence, but all 
degrees, whatsoever. The church may develop in its 
members certain excellences; and these are religious. 
So are all real excellences that arise in the household, 
and in schools of literature. Religion is the universal, 
and whatever thing is good in any degree or in any 
sphere on the whole earth belongs to it. It claims 
whatever manhood develops — all manhood J 

It may be possible to institute a comparison between 
the peculiar sorts and degrees of excellence produced 
by religious institutions and secular institutions, but 
not between the excellences produced by art, or culture, 
or social influence, and those developed by religion. All 
true excellence is religious just as far as it is genuine, and 
every right thing that men tend to do or feel anywhere 
is obligatory upon those who are by profession Christians. 

Important consequences depend on this very simple 
statement and demand more illustration. 

97 



98 SERMON BRIEFS 

1. Religion is some form of the life of the soul. It is 

a state, or an activity. In either case, whether it is a 
disposition or an experience, it is a mental state, and 
cannot exist except in a living form, 
i. It cannot be contained in a book, 

2. Nor in a system of ideas, 

3. Nor in an institution. 

4. Nor can there be such a thing as conferring it, 
except by developing it. It, cannot come as treasure is 
bequeathed, as honors are-conf erred, or as authorities of 
the government are bestowed. Where it is said that 
God creates it, it means that he does so just as he creates 
harvests, by inspiring men to raise, and not clouds to 
rain, wheat and maize. 

II. The state of righteousness, the quality of the 
character called religion being fairly placed where it 
belongs, next in importance come the instruments by 
which men cultivate it. In this regard, we complain of 
the essential narrowness of prevalent opinions. 

1. The natural world is one, first, though lowest. 

2. The conditions of men in society: implying excite- 
ment; good offices; obedience; necessity for industry 
and remunerations of skill, etc. All are under Divine 
influence. 

O^p" 3 Some men think God has no footing in the world 
except in churches ! 

3. All educational tendencies which bring men to 
the fullness of their power, and refine them. 

4. All strictly moral educations. Under this head 
come: 

The churches, 
Their ordinances, 
Their theologies, 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 99 

Their discipline and round of duties. 

I am not to be understood as undervaluing, but as 
denning and ranking them. They are indispensable, 
they are of transcendent value ; yet they are but instru- 
ments by which men are helped to develop a religious 
state of life. The religion is in men — not in institutions. 

Illn. I declare that grapes contain in their own selves 
the qualities which give all their value to that fruit. 

G^p^ And there is no grape in the hothouse or cold 
grapery itself. Neither vine, nor fruit, nor flower can 
be found as an element of the houses by which they are 
raised, nor in the gardener who educates the vine. 

So / of churches and ministers. Let us review them. 

i< The Church: What it is, and what it is not. Asso- 
ciation of men for moral and spiritual education. This 
education by teaching either ideas or emotions. For 
this education's sake, days, services, ordinances, are to 
moral culture what in secular education are schools, 
school-rules, books and blackboards. 

The Church is not " holy " in any sense of possessing 
moral quality, which cannot belong to any but the 
individual. 

2. Bible, sacraments, ordinances. 

Their true sphere: instrumental. 

The superstitious notions. 

APPLICATION 

I. Religion should not be allowed to consist in a kind 
of professionalism, — as if it were an artificial state 
belonging to a class, and not a development of universal 
human existence. 

Religion would be real if every church on earth were 
apostate. It would be obligatory if every ordinance, 
book, system, were corrupted or destroyed. It springs 



100 SERMON BRIEFS 

from the nature given to the soul, its relations to God, 
and its own immortality and infinity. 

II. The dissensions and controversies which have filled 
the world, divided Christians, and brought scepticism 
to many natures, have regarded, not religion, but the 
methods of producing it. 

i. There has been no controversy as to the beauty, 
superiority, or divinity of those heart-qualities — truth, 
justice, benevolence, courage, patience, love, faith, 
hope. 

O^ 3 The world has made up its heroes very much of 
the same material as its saints — the difference being 
in relative knowledge and skill in the use of material. 

Illn. Just as Egyptian and Greek art came, — at the 
bottom. 

KW I do not remember a controversy as between a 
lower and a higher quality; as between one virtue and 
another; as between more being or less. 

2. The controversies have raged, and do still, around 
the implements and instruments. 

3. The superlative folly of seeking unity of churches, 
and the needlessness of seeking unity of Christians. ffi 

III. The growth of religion and its spread among 
men, are connected with the spread of its means of 
education ; but the spiritual life produced is the real test. 

Illn. Exporting tools to Africa is not spreading agri- 
culture. What is accomplished with them? 

IV. The religious condition of a nation may depend 
upon its abundant religious institutions; but it cannot 
be measured by that. Cathedrals, churches, may lie 
like parks of artillery in peace. It is 



WHAT IS RELIGION? *0 \ 

i . The living state of its whole population — not its 
favored ones. Would to God as in a household — not 
one left out! 

2. The state and power of ideas of justice, truth, 
purity, benevolence. 

3. Its government and laws must be judged by the 
same test as its religion. 

V. The danger of the extinction of religion from the 
rise of science, etc., is not to be considered. 

1. Religion stands in human nature. It is man, in 
his supreme development, and won't perish till he 
perishes. 

2. Whatever changes may come will be in the instru- 
ments. 

d^" New modes of education, processes of art, musical 
refinement, mechanical methods, scientific culture, all 
will have their bearing upon spiritual development, but 
religion is man's best estate, links him to God, and will 
live while man lives. 



XXIV 
CHRIST'S FAITH in MAN 



And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved 
Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and 
that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his 
name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. — Luke 24: 46, 
47- 

Among all the renderings of the Lord's last words, 
this of Luke is in many respects the most remarkable. 
The others are a command to preach his Gospel with an 
assurance of his presence and blessing. 

But this is an injunction to preach: — 

I. Repentance, and remission of sins; or the doctrine 
that men are capable of immediate change, and of spir- 
itual development by release from sin. 

II. That this susceptibility to religious education and 
development is universal. It did not belong solely to 
the Jews, but also to the Gentiles. 

(See Rom. 3, etc., " Is he God of the Jews only? Nay, 
but of the Gentiles also.") 

1. The declaration of human sinfulness not a pecu- 
liarity of the Gospel. 

Universal experience and recognition. 

2 The grand peculiarity was the disclosure of a 
remedy. 

102 



CHRIST'S FAITH in MAN J03 

This idea involves two elements: 

a. Divine clemency, and influence; 

b. Human capability of change, and education. 
God is willing to forgive and restore ; 

Man is universally capable of spiritual develop- 
ment. 

III. All other religions are local, national. The Chris- 
tian religion is universal. 

i. God is Father of the race — of all, without regard 
to condition or character. 

2. Christ, as Saviour and educator, contemplates all 
time and all races. 

3. And this is with hopeful and confident faith in 
manhood. 

This may be further unfolded : 

a. In the Gospel is found an even more 
solemn recognition of human wickedness. 

b. But never contempt or hatred. These quali- 
ties are almost universally shown among men, but 
never in the words of Christ. 

c. Never an undervaluing of this capacity for 
change, education, elevation. 

(t^ This confidence in men, this boldness in working 
for them, and this exhilarating hopefulness of human 
amelioration, are grand characteristics of Christianity, 
and are found in no other religion of the world. 

IV. Let me give special applications to this spirit of 
the Gospel. 

1. The capability of each man for reformation of 
morals, for the beginning of a religious life, and for 
growth in it. No matter how slender the moral endow- 
ments, nor how massive the passional nature, nor how 



J04 SERMON BRIEFS 

terrible the structure of habits, the most desperate 
sinner may become a Christian. 

C^ 3 Oh, read that wonderful narrative : 

Mark 5: 1-8, 15 (Man possessed with the legion of 
devils, " sitting and clothed and in his right mind"). 

You cannot labor aright for the reformation of igno- 
rant and vicious men till you have faith in their restora- 
bility. If you are discouraged 

By depth of depravity, 

By force of pernicious habits, 

By circumstances that, like bulwarks, defend them 
from your approach, you will not win. 

It may require time, and repetition, and all means 
may seem to fail ; and yet, the inherent capacity of new 
life is there. 

2. We recognize certain great facts: 

a. That some men have but little spiritual 
capacity, and are children; 

b. And that others are by their fixed dispositions, 
and by their surroundings, difficult of approach, 
and harder than others to be changed. 

Yet it is not Christlike to separate a community 
into classes, and to cherish the feeling that there 
are any for whom it is not worth while to employ 
the means of grace. 

3. Commerce is bringing the question of races before 
the Christian world in striking and important aspects. 

a. The avarice and enterprise of the great indus- 
trial world seize the weak as instruments of toil 
and commerce on the plea that they are fit for 
nothing else. 

b. Christian civilization has not saved men from 
arrogance of superiority. Nations play aristocrat 
just as individuals do, among their inferiors. We 



CHRIST'S FAITH in MAN J05 

disdain weak races. Even civilized nations treat 
each o;ther with immense arrogance and conceit — 
France, England, America — but how much more 
really inferior and undeveloped peoples! 

4. The Christianity of a nation is to be learned not 
from its creeds, nor from select specimens, but from its 
essential spirit toward the poor and ignorant: 

Faith in their improvement; 

Labor for education; 

Development to Christian manhood; 

Self-sacrifice for their sakes; 

Security to them in laws, usages and public sentiment. 

But if the poor and ignorant are given up to injustice, 
without pity; if their wrongs inflame no zeal; if to 
justify our inhumanity we plead the degradation and 
worthlessness of the weak, we are guilty of infidelity. 

We have been brought face to face with this question 
in that Providence which put four million freedmen 
on our hands. 

a. Some report one thing and some another. 

b. Arguing capacity and educability. It is an 
insult to God and the Gospel to assume that they 
are not worth education and full manhood. 

5. The infidelity of our day is of the letter or of the 
spirit. 

a. Some doubt the Scriptures, but believe in the 
spirit of human religion. 

b. Others believe in Scripture and in the Church, 
every iota, but do not believe in man. 

Christ, again, says: "These things ye should have 
done, and not left the others undone." 

6. The guilt of mistreating man. 

a. Indifference is a neglect of the law of love. 
This, in its effect, is equivalent to Hatred. 



i06 SERMON BRIEFS 

b. Since God is the God of all, wrong to man is 
wrong to Christ, " Inasmuch as ye did it," etc. 
It is by ignoring the great truth of immortality, of 
future development, that man is made to seem vile, 
ignoble, etc. A man is more than here he seems to be. 
The best part of him may be asleep yet. We are to 
believe in men I Christ's own faith in manhood is the 
ground of hope, for all — even degraded individuals, 
even weak and undeveloped peoples. 



II 

THE WARFARE 



XXV 
MAN'S HEART-HOUSE 



Set thine house in order. — i Kings 20 : 1. 

Throughout the Bible a man's heart is spoken of as 
a dwelling, or a temple, or a house of some kind; and 
with good reason. It is quite in the spirit of Scripture 
to employ this analogy, and to urge upon you the duty 
of heart-cleaning and ordering, by the figure of a house 
and its surroundings. 

1. One of the first things required for a good and 
orderly house is a careful attention to its immediate 

grounds. It is impossible to have a cleanly house when 
every man must wade through dirt to enter it. 

In Europe you shall find offal heaps right under the 
windows, and paths to the door muddy. Even when 
not so evil, yet often great disorder and slatternliness. 
Gates unhinged, fence sways and leans, trees ragged, 
all manner of detritus collected, and too often on the 
side hidden most is all the wreck and remnant of crock- 
ery, of ware, utensil, rags, paper, etc. 

d^ 3 1. No man could persuade you that such sur- 
roundings would not have great influence within. They 
would. 

2. The first step in setting a house in order is to cleanse 
its surroundings. 

109 



HO SERMON BRIEFS 

The application of this is obvious: 

Men's lives too often are neglected in the same way. 
Whatever may be the condition of their heart, it is 
surrounded outside by all sorts of evil things, evil men, 
careless habits, moral unthrift, and scores of things 
which, though not perhaps evil, sinful, yet indicate a 
want of moral order, moral taste, sense of beauty. 

All these otitward things it behooves a man resolutely 
to clear up. 

II. Consider the structure itself. 

A divelling forever tends to decay. There is gradual 
waste long before there comes rot. The roof grows 
leaky in places out of sight and forgotten. Water drops 
through. There is decay in the timbers. The troughs 
and gutters suffer in nooks and angles. The flues gather 
soot and grow foul. Windows are broken. Doors are 
shrunk or sagged. Stairs are creaky. Keys are lost 
and locks are useless. Though the house is in the main 
substantial it is out of order; and in spots it is actually 
decaying. 

Just so with the heart-house. Men grow careless. 
Neglect and easiness take the place of vigilant watching. 
One duty is wholly neglected, another is slightly done. 
Some things are covered up, and some are positively 
running into sins and vices. 

What would be the first step towards putting a house 
in order, etc? 

Every minute thing and place is to be searched and 
inquired into. 

III. The order of a house depends in a great degree 
upon its furnishing. 

There should be symmetry and proportion of 
things among themselves. So of qualities. Sometimes 



MAN'S HEART-HOUSE \U 

there is one great virtue — the rest squalid. There may 
be exceeding activity for the poor, and yet un charitable- 
ness to equals and censoriousness of superiors. 

The hall is in order; the parlor is in order; the rooms 
in which the family commonly live are carefully attended 
to; but the out-of-the-way rooms are full of gross 
negligence. 

i. Thus, in things that are for the eye of others there 
is care, but in things that are for ourselves there is 
carelessness. 

2. You will find it to be even more so if you examine 
the trunks, the drawers, and the cupboards. 

Just so is it in the heart -house. And what does 
setting that house in order require? 

IV. There is the parasitic life of a house — vermin of 
the heart. What if God should give it visible form! etc. 

V. The ways in which men set their house in order : 

i. They let things run for a long time, and then have 
a grand clearing tip, preparatory to another season of 
heedlessness. So men have periods of recklessness and 
of reform. 

2. Some put their house in order only or chiefly by 
hiding: — a rug put over threadbare carpet; chintz over 
soiled brocade; paint and putty where there should 
have been new wood; curtains and trickery of conceal- 
ment. 

3. Some men are always going to, but never quite 
ready to begin. Men vexed with evil habits, and neglects 
innumerable: — always about to, but never do. 

4. A thorough housekeeper, 

A daily broom, cobwebs — dust — dirt; 
Water, soap, and cleansing; 



\\2 SERMON BRIEFS 

Incessant arranging; 

And then besides, grand periodic overhaulings. 

VI. Thus far the house has been regarded in relation 
to its occupants. But certain seasons of the year, as 
Thanksgiving and Christmas, remind us of putting our 
house in order for the reception of the loved and honored. 

i. The disinterestedness and generosity of hospitality. 

2. The joy of having the house stored with all that 
can please — food, conveniences, games, books, good 
company, the parents ready, the children gathered. 

But how, when the heart is expecting its very Lord 
and Saviour, who promises to come, and abide? 

The Christian has many things to cast out. 

How many things to bring in ! 

Would you have a house for a friend as cheerless as 
your heart is for Christ? 

VII. Putting house in order, to leave it. 
Solemn thoughts of dying. Text. 

Appeal to men. Uncertainty of life: condition of 
living : heart. 

God draws near, either in life or in death. 



XXVI 
RELIGION DEMANDS EARNESTNESS 



And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom 
of heaven suffereth [is gotten by] violence, and the violent take it by 
force. — Matt. 1 1 : 12. 

The figure is military. It is a campaign, a siege, a 
victory. The truth hidden, or expressed rather, is the 
necessity of energy and power in a religious life, and the 
certainty that skillful energy will succeed. 

I. Men do not and cannot come to the divine life by 
any natural unfolding. 

Illn. As their body comes to completeness. It is a 
result far beyond this conception of naturalism. 

II. The whole scheme of personal religion is, in another 
sense, a part of nature. 

1. There is nothing superfluous in a man's constitu- 
tion, to be cut off. 

2. Nothing supernatural in faculty and function, to 
be added. This is contrary to the Latin theology, by 
which it is held that there must be 

a. A self-denial which really vacates nature; 

b. Attainments which really do not belong to the 
human mind, but are specially created in the man 
of religion. 

"3 



H4 SERMON BRIEFS 

On the contrary, the seed-form exists at birth, and 
requires only 
Divine stimulus. 
Real earnestness in men. 

III. Take notice that (i) the material world and (2) 
human society tend to develop the lower half of man's 
nature without much dependence on his conscious 
effort; that for the rest there must be found a principle 
of will. The higher range must be an education or 
development — not casual and incidental, but by con- 
science, reason and purpose. 

IV. Where these are put forth there is nothing that 
need hinder any one. 

1 . God is open to all — belongs to all. 

2. No divine plans and purposes which require any 
to be sacrificed . 

3. No insufficiency of influence, or limitation of 
atoning power. 

General amnesty offered. 
Remedy, medicine for all. 

4. But is it not true that there is a special influence 
exerted upon some and left unexerted upon others ? 

a. The summer is universal. Men specialize it. 

b. For special work there may be special call, 
but other than this all are called alike. 

5. But it is not true that organization varies in effi- 
ciency and sensibility, to such a degree that the same 
influence becomes a very different thing to different 
persons? Yes; $^T but this only says that in moral 
things as in intellectual, gifts differ. 

Illn. Free republic. Laws and government for all — 
citizenship. Yet some are rich, and some are poor; 



RELIGION DEMANDS EARNESTNESS U5 

some come to office and honor, and some do not; some 
are educated and influential, etc. 

So in the Commonwealth of Israel. Citizenship is 
open to all. The condition varies infinitely. 

V. Reasons of difficulty : 

Not nature; 

Not God; 

But your contentment with lower things will lower 
the forces of human life. Your conceit of morality. 
Your satisfaction with the world. 

To go higher demands activity, stern purpose, unto 
the end. 

APPLICATION 

i. To live on as you have lived will not change you. 

2. To leave to some better day has not availed you. 

3. Waiting, in the sense of indolence, has not done 
more in religion than it would do in commerce. 

4. No miraculous dispensation is to care for you. 
Is it not time to awake to exertion? 

To leave off evil? What if you have failed before? 
To couple that with higher efforts? 
To change company ; call on God, in resolute earnest- 
ness? 

Is not this the very time t 



xxvn 

A FORECAST 



And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us 
not up hence. — Ex. 33: 15. 

Escape of Israelites from Egypt. 

Sinai. The future all before them. 

Moses was to organize an entire society anew — to 
provide religious forms, civil processes, officers, and to 
superintend administration. 

The sense of greatness of his work. One of those 
solemn forelookings. He cast himself utterly upon God. 

We, too, have come to a new year. We have begun 
its march. A great orb of experience lies before us. 

I. It would seem as if the boldest spirit would hesitate, 
and even quail, could he survey all the possibilities of 
the year before us, in the light of our own wisdom and 
strength. 

a. It may be a year of unplanned wandering, or 
of sickness, and consequent helplessness. Knowl- 
edge and foresight do much, but ignorance of law, 
and liabilities through others, make life wholly un- 
certain. 

Strong men, doing just what they always did 
with impunity, suddenly break down. 

Epidemics: whole air a poisonous garment. 
Shirt of Nessus. 
116 



A FORECAST U7 

The entire complexion of life may be changed. 
The supreme blessing of God in sound reason. 
Reason may totter. 

b. No one can foresee whether it will not be a 
year of separations and bereavements. 

Sorrows there surely are for somebody. It is 

like going into battle, etc. 

Illn. Death of children, like frosts on flower garden. 

Illn. Death of dear and intimate friends, like drying 

up of waters — channel bare. Or loss of mountaineer's 

staff. 

c. No one can foresee the results of his ventures — 
whether care, rather than comfort; disorder; em- 
barrassment. 

Illn. You wander forth as one in a vast forest, hunt- 
ing food, etc. You can do much. No man can be 
sure. 

d. Besides these, every one has tastes, ambitions, 
purposes, on which largely his life-comfort depends, 
and which may be thwarted or turned awry. 

e. The seductions of the year may have unfore- 
seen results on character: 

Demoralizing effects of secular success; 
New and fascinating companionships. 
/. Clouds of lies, slanders, evil stories, may rise 
like venomous insects from a morass. 
g. The uncertainties of religious experience. 
The removal from means of grace. 
The being thrown among worldly and godless 
men. 

Starvation of soul, etc. 
All these reasonings may well inspire feelings like 
those of Moses in looking forth upon the unknown 
future — a sense of man's dependence upon God. 



US SERMON BRIEFS 

II. How God will go with us. 

i. By his Providence. Sweet and gracious assurance : 
" All things shall work together for good," etc. 

2. By his Grace, or those personal and experimental 
communications to the human soul. 

3. Through these, inspiring Faith in truth, rectitude, 
and trust. 

4. "Thy will be done." 

5. Seeing Him who is invisible. 

Have you in prospect any plan or pleasure, on which 
you dare not ask God's blessing? 

Are your purposes worthy of you and your privileges ? 
Are you self-seeking, or do you work for God? 



xxvra 

WORKING OUT SALVATION 



Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my 
presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your 
own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which 
worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. — Phil. 
2: 12, 13. 

A passage very deep and full. 

I. Some respects in which no man can work out his 
own salvation. 

Q^p"" The revelation to himself of the truths under which 
he must ripen. 

1. God's nature, character and government. 

2. No man can prepare the way of reconciliation , nor 
of the manifestation of God in Christ. 

3. Nor atone for sins, nor change the action of those 
laws which by sins are set against the sinner. 

Illn. A parable in husbandry : may work out food and 
raiment; but cannot create the earth, the heavens, and 
their phenomena; he can only use them. 

II. The conception of working out is to be understood 
in the sense of carrying forward to completion a certain 
work begun. 

Illn. It is as if a loom were set, the warp stretched, 
the threads reeled and wound and all ready, the pattern 

119 



120 SERMON BRIEFS 

determined and drawn, and the order. Now work out 
that pattern! 

Several important implications. 

a. This conception strikes a blow at a mischievous 
popular idea, that conversion does up the principal 
part of the work; that Divine power transforms a 
man. 

Illn. Distinction between this and a clock which is 
finished, and needs only to be kept in running order: 

Education, which unfolds, grows, develops. Instan- 
taneousness of beginning; gradualism of progress. 

b. It establishes a substantial identity between 
salvation and character: i. e., salvableness is possible 
only to right moral conditions. 

Spiritual elevation and purity. 
Illn. Some think of conversion as a free ticket to a 
music academy ; to an art gallery : yet no man can have 
conferred upon him taste, knowledge, etc. These 
grow: so also right character. 

c. It brings moral education into harmony with 
other mental culture, in so far as man alone is con- 
cerned. There is spiritual aid; but that which 
man does conforms to well-known laws and usages 
of education. 

III. This working out, or carrying forward, is to be 
with fear and trembling. 
Fear has a long scale. 
i. It may be a mere pain or terror. 

2. It may be relaxing, and a cause of weakness. 

3. It may be a substitute for hope, inspiration and joy. 
All these kinds of fear are foreign to Christianity. 

4. Fear may belong to generous enthusiasm, like that 
with which one works out a delicate experiment in art. 



WORKING OUT SALVATION \2\ 

Fear of taste — garden flowers. 

$W That peculiar affection which gives vividness to 
an operation in chemical experiments before an audience, 
or an operation in surgery. 

O^ 3 Still higher, the solicitude of love. 

Christian life, indeed, — 

i. Is not such a certainty of success as allows relaxa- 
tion of vigilance. 

2. It is not a thing ordained, as are the seasons and 
climates. 

3. It is so vital and critical in its issues that no man 
can afford to neglect it. 

4. Utter rebuke is conveyed, of 
Indifferentism, 
Church-security , 

Morality in a low sense. 

IV. The working of God's Spirit. 

1. The unseen and unknown things, innumerable. 

I tin. The unrecognized provision by work — food, 
raiment, watching, care, aim, and ambition — around 
a child, by the parent, gives a germ of the conception of 
God's invisible fidelities. 

2. The direct power of the world upon the senses 
demands a continual and powerful inspiration of the 
moral sense and spiritual nature, from God. 

3. God's help — 

a. Is not arbitrary and intrusive; 

b. Is not a substitute for our own effort* 

c. Is not a jealous condition; 

d. When one has done all, and yet there remain 
vast unreached elements and influences, God comes 
in with inspiration and counsel. 



XXIX 
AS A LITTLE CHILD 



Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom 
of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. — Mark 10: 15. 

As our Saviour gave no explanation of his meaning 
further than these words, we must gather it from his 
general instructions. 

The case was this : 

1. His bearing was so impressive, his manner was so 
winning, and his sympathy with all about him was so 
attractive, that parents felt that their children would 
be blessed if only he would notice them. The more 
affectionate and simple-minded of them began to gather 
them together, and to press with the little children 
around the Saviour. It was the very parental instinct, 
natural and beautiful. 

2. But his disciples interfered. The word rebuked 
is emphatic. The disciples were officious, and probably 
rude. They thrust them back. They scolded them. 
Their manner was offensive, as well as their spirit, or the 
Saviour would not have been so moved as he was. ' ' He 
was much displeased," is not a light phrase. It is not 
fit that we should consider it as a mere transient vexa- 
tion — a sharp and transient spirit of annoyance. There 
must have been to his mind something deeper and more 
important than simple ill-manners or needless officious- 

122 



AS A LITTLE CHILD 123 

ness to save their Master from inconvenient importunity. 
It was not, we may suppose, the mere act which he 
rebuked, but that whole state of mind out of which the 
action proceeded. 

The disciples, we suspect, regarded little children 
as having place and value in the family, but otherwise 
as not worth considering, simply because they had no 
immediate productive relation to civil society. They 
could earn nothing. They could perform nothing. 
They had no experience, no wisdom, no wit. The little 
brood might be precious to the overweening love of 
parents; but that allowable and amicable illusion of 
love aside, what was a child worth? 

There were two elements of error : 

i. An egotism respecting adult life. 

2. An utter ignorance of deeper elements of value than 
those which society evolves. 

a. Their idea of the importance of men was de- 
rived exclusively from their secular value. It was 
not a question of character but of producing; not 
nature, but use. He only is valuable in this visi- 
ble, physical world who can produce effects. Then, 
next, he who can produce them most abundantly. 

He who can talk efficiently, 

He who can legislate, or administer, 

He who can manufacture, or exchange, 

He who can plant, or reap, 

He who can amass wealth, conduct armies, 

make poems, or do some eminent thing — he is a 

man indeed. 

b. Now, there is an element of truth in one way 
of looking at this. As members of worldly society, 
men must be ranked by the quality and quantity 
of their productive force. 



J24 SERMON BRIEFS 

But the vice of this view is, that it ignores any- 
other human relations, and assumes that man's 
relations to society furnish the true and proper 
measure by which to estimate and value him. 
For, is there not a God? a future world? Is man's 
value to be judged by his relation to a pin's point on 
that vast sphere, or to the whole orb of his being? 

The spiritual being was wholly unfelt. The 
disciples regarded children as of little account 
among men. It was a judgment which assumed 
that men were material beings. 

c. Our Saviour reversed this. He substantially 
declared that all the development which took place 
in ordinary life was away from true spiritual man- 
hood. Men in their prime were not so near God's 
ideal of manhood after forty years as when they 
started in life ! 
Let us consider it a little : 

i . Admit that a child has an aim that is better than one 
which falsifies the whole spiritual truth of a man's being. 

2. Adult man has developed into superior force and 
controlling energy, the passions, and not sentiments. 

3. Adult men have shaped for themselves habits 
which are totally incompatible with spirituality. 

4. Adult men have formed deep within a character 
which is not holy — which is selfish, vain, worldly, dis- 
obedient, and proud. 

5. The elements of these are in childhood, but may 
be trained the other way. 

APPLICATION 

I. It is a very serious consideration for adult men, 
that they have spent the best part of their life in 
unfitting themselves for true manhood. 



AS A LITTLE CHILD J25 

Further from goodness than when you began ! 
Men's consciousness of the fact. 

II. Before men can enter the kingdom of God they 
must come back to childhood. 

Lay aside pride and vanity, and all their fancied 
knowledge. 

Their secular power will do no good. 

(I^ 3 Illn. What if men should go to a physician on 
the ground of accomplishment, great wealth, social 
position? What has that to do with illness? Beggars 
and they stand on the same ground. 

Consider, then, how apt Christians in our day are to 
fall into : 

i. Neglect of children in the work of the church. 

2. Overvaluing of men by reason of secular elements, 
Social standing, 

Wealth-power, 
Learning and influence. 

3. The undervaluing of those who are devoid of 
extrinsic qualities. 

4. The same on a large scale, in which society and 
governments attempt to settle questions for the strong, 
and not for the despised — the non-constituent element. 

III. Every man has in his own family a Gospel of 
Children, saying to him ever more 

"As a little child!" 



XXX 

CHRIST IN YOU 



My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ 
be formed in you. — Gal. 4:19. 

The solicitude of a Christian teacher and friend was 
never more strikingly expressed than by this figure of 
maternity. The Apostle carried his disciples in his 
soul, as it were, protecting and gradually nourishing 
them with his own life and love until such time as they 
should be spiritually organized, and able to supply 
themselves with soul-nutriment. 

Observe that he is not speaking of those who were not 
Christians, and whom he sought to win: he is speaking 
of converts, whose Christian life had really begun, but 
who were so feeble, so deficient, that in his strong 
language he travailed in birth with them again. It 
was not a vague desire for their welfare. It was a 
definite end that he sought; viz., the formation of 
Christ in their souls. 

That term formed harmonizes with the word travail. 
Christ was in their souls, but as an unborn babe. A 
principle of life was planted in them, and was forming 
itself in them to the likeness of Christ. There is, there- 
fore, a single and a compound figure, that these feeble 
Galatian converts spiritually bore in their bosoms an 
unborn, undeveloped Jesus; and that while they were 

126 



CHRIST IN YOU J27 

thus feeble and almost helpless the Apostle enwrapped 
his own being around them, and carried them in his 
soul, as a mother does her unborn babe. 

The two striking points which I wish to use, are, 

i. That the end and ideal of Christian life is the 
formation of the soul to the likeness of Christ. 

2 . That a Christian nature comes by gradual formation. 
As Christ was born into the world a babe, and grew to 
manhood by the ordinary ministration of natural law, 
so Christ is born in the soul a babe, and grows to a full 
stature by the ordinary laws of spiritual education. 

However helpful this view may practically seem, there 
will be some who will regard it as dangerous, by the 
introduction of naturalism, in place of the Divine Spirit. 
It will seem as if we taught that religion was not the 
product in the soul of efficient divine power, but the 
mere creation of the human will and of natural 
forces. 

But I teach no such doctrine. Spiritual life in the 
soul has its origin in the personal influence of God upon 
the human heart. Without such Divine quickening no 
man would awake into spiritual life. And at every 
stage of development, whatever natural laws are em- 
ployed, and whatever ordinary instruments are applied, 
the efficient and vital element is that Divine Spirit. 
" It is God that works in us to will and to do of his good 
pleasure." 

But it is of the utmost importance that we should 
know whether, in the exertion of divine force, it pleases 
God to set aside ordinary laws and rational instruments, 
and to substitute for them a pure spiritual efficiency 
of his own, or whether it pleases him to exert his life- 
giving power through the natural faculties of man 
and in the use of ordinary instruments guiding them, 



J28 SERMON BRIEFS 

giving to them a power and fruit-fulness which mere 
human will could never impart. 

This last is the Scriptural view. Men are not spirit- 
ually born of their own mere will and power. A truly 
religious nature has been quickened and born again by 
the power of God's Holy Spirit. But in this gracious 
work God does not create at once and fully a soul in full 
power, equipped and perfected; for every soul is born 
into God's kingdom as a babe. This is God's plan, to 
develop such souls in his grace and by his grace, accord- 
ing to natural laws, by the mind's evolution, and not by 
some other plan which shall by a bolt of light shoot the 
whole soul far up above all ordinary conditions. 

No bird is born with full feathers and a song in its 
mouth. 

The first inflection of this truth is one which naturally 
grows out of the profoundly interesting scene of this 
morning in this house — the union with Christ's visible 
church of so many persons, both young and old. Some 
of this number have for years sought a Christian dis- 
position. Others — and the greatest number — have 
but recently begun the Christian career; and it is to 
them that I say : 

I. Your Christian career is not consummated and 
crowned, but only begun. You have yielded to the Divine 
influence, and have been persuaded in the day of God's 
power to educate your souls into a likeness of Christ. 

i . Your struggles hereafter are not chiefly to keep what 
you have had imparted to you — God's grace; but by 
its use you are to attain what }< t ou do not now possess. 

Illn. Shall the young collegian, examined, entered, 
imagine his business to be only not to forget what he 
knew? His motto should be, Go on unto perfection. 



CHRIST IN YOU 129 

2. Look at the work before you. 

a. The Christianizing of each faculty, but par- 
ticularly of those master-forces which inspire human 
conduct, 

$W llln. As you have been separated from the 
world, and brought into the fellowship of a Christian 
community, so each of the faculties of your nature — 
pride, approbativeness, force, fear, conscience — is to 
be introduced into the court of Divine love, and to re- 
ceive its laws and spirit there. 

b. Out of this, collectively, is to spring disposi- 
tion, which is the general result of all the faculties. 
The soul's atmosphere is like the planet's atmos- 
phere. Disposition is to men what the perfumes of 
a garden are — the sum of the odor of a hundred 
kinds of flowers. 

c. Then comes the carriage of this nature into 
society, and the development of the practical law 
of love, in your jostlings and rivalries, strifes and 
struggles, among your disguised brethren. 

d. And to all this is to be added your Christian 
engineering, or the management of business, the 
administration of all trusts, in a spirit of true 
integrity, honor, and benevolence. 

g^" Hence, a Christian life means business. You are 
builders, and have just begun on the foundation. You 
are soldiers, and have just enlisted. You are pupils, and 
have just entered school. You are children, and all 
your life lies before you. The church is your home, God 
is your Father, and the world is your practicing 
ground. 

II. As children begin life with very different aptitudes, 
and under conditions that make a vast difference in the 



J30 SERMON BRIEFS 

ease of acquirement, and certainly of well-doing, in 
some cases over others, so is it in spiritual birth. 

Illn. Start off a hundred ships. How soon they 
separate, and scatter along a line ot leagues! 

So in commerce; 

So in industrial pursuits ; and 

Just so in religious elevation and attainment. 

Some have inherited a disposition far easier to edu- 
cate; and others are slow, dull, intractable. 

i. Some begin with flush, glow, and a certainty 
which helps all life from an experience of ideality, or 
earnestness, or both. 

Illn. Kindling a fire of piety in the soul may be like 
kindling a fire in a house that is sheltered, with pre- 
pared fuel, or it may be in wet woods with green 
material. 

2. Some are imaginative, and have great facility in 
originating vision — invisible things easily realized. 
Others are practical, wise in things, rather than in 
thoughts. What then? Both have entered upon an 
education. 

Illn. The slowest and dullest is still being educated 
even though at the bottom of the class. 

O^gf 3 As to brilliant experiences. 

a. Are those men in ordinary life the more solid, 
reliable, estimable, that have fancy, mobility, etc.? 

Law of compensation. 

The slow and solid gain, hold, and in the end are 
superior. One reaps early and the other late, that's all. 

III. You must be prepared for the mutations of early 
experience, the glow of love, the fire of enthusiasm, 
i. It may burn to embers. 
2. But it may change its form, only. 



CHRIST IN YOU \Z\ 

Mutation of love, from an emotion to a practice — 
broadens, grows in power and fruitfulness, though less 
obvious as a feeling. A feeling put to uses is no longer 
a mere feeling. It is more. It is motive power. 

Illn. A stream seems so wild and free, but only carries 
itself in whirls and sparkling eddies. Drive it into a 
mill-race, lay it on a wheel, and it seems lost; yet all the 
machinery that is within attests its power; and though 
it has lost something of beauty, it has gained in power 
and uses. 

IV. The mistake of many who seek to put on the Lord 
Jesus, instead of having him formed within. 

One figure is of a garment. 

The other is of an education. 

If you do not readily find your advancement in 
prayer, the Bible, and your meditation, then accept the 
indication, and form Christ in your life in gentleness, in 
magnanimity, in generosity of honor, in noble humility, 
in royal patience, in self-sacrifice, in suffering for others. 
A temper and character formed on Christ's example 
cannot fail to bring you to the vision of Christ. 

V. In this life of growth, the Church, the Bible, and 
all means of grace, ordinances and all, are mere servants. 

Nothing is sacred or holy but a living thing — no stone, 
no paper. 

Yet text-books are useful. 

0^" Charts are indispensable to navigators. 

Maps show roads to the traveler. 

VI. Lastly: Christ carries us all in his bosom. It is 

not an unwatched process. We are not wandering 



J32 SERMON BRIEFS 

among snows and glaciers without a guide, far from 
home. Signals from time to time tell us where we are. 

Illn. As a flagman on a road waves a white signal, to 
say that the road is clear and that the train is coming, 
so the white hair upon your head will, etc. 



XXXI 
BESETTING SINS 



Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a 
cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which 
doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that 
is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our 
faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, 
despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne 
of God. — Heb. 12 : 1, 2. 

Among the elements of separate personality, is sin. 
A man's faults constitute a large part of his character. 

Seen from the fact, that faults are faculties or forces 
unskillfully managed. Constituent elements awry. 

I. Sins are of different kinds: as to heinousness, detri- 
ment, danger. 

II. Graver sins are less likely to be committed, though 
more injurious if committed. 

III. Minor sins are called faults. 

IV. It is especially in regard to these that we may 
speak of their being " easily besetting" 

1. Sins of the flesh. 

2. Sins of nerve. 

3. Sins of over-action. 

133 



t34 SERMON BRIEFS 

4. Sins of tinder-action. 

5. Bias of custom. Sympathetic or social sins, 
drawn out by the influence of others on us. 

6. Solitary sins, or those which befall us by reason of 
loneliness, separation. 

V. The quality and effect of minor sins. 

1. Their individual insignificance made up by their 
multitude. 

Illn. Dust; Aphides; seventeen-year locust in park. 

2. They are frequent because they are so minute. 
By repetition they make up want of force. 

Illn. How paths are made by footfall, across a lawn. 

3. Great temptations and sins are but rare, and, 
though damaging, not so much so as the infinite number 
of petty sins. 

Illn. Weeds are worse than robbers in a flower garden. 

Illn. Moths are more dangerous to a wardrobe than 
thieves. 

Little sins tarnish if they do not scratch. 

Illn. Degrees of harm to a mirror: broken to pieces; 
cracked; scratched; tarnished; mist, dust, covering 
from all usefulness. Difference among these evils, as 
to endurance of mirror, but not as to its function. 

VI. Easily besetting. 

How nimble, restless, multifarious; how deceitful, 
sly, changeable of face; how incessant, unwearied! 

VII. Such sins, instead of being laid aside, are, gener- 
ally, 

1. Overlooked, not noticed; 

2. Indulged and justified; 

3. Palliated, pitied, excused; 



BESETTING SINS J35 

4. Disguised, covered up by soft names; 

5. Now and then they are put down for a while by 
paroxysmal assault. Like thriftless housekeeper's peri- 
odic cleaning up. 

(C^ Hence it is 

1. That men make so little progress; 

2. That, on the whole, life wears poorer, not richer. 
Illn. Not like the weather on rocks and stone castles:, 

but like paint on wooden houses. 

VIII. But they must be laid aside, as one does a hin- 
dering garment when about to exert one's self. To do 
this: 

1. Impossible, if by mere purpose, watch, self -inspired 
might, fussy, pragmatical effort. 

2. But under the inspiration of love it is natural and 
easy. For love transforms, utilizes life, and makes 
all things facile. 

Hence, " looking unto Jesus.'' Here is the inspira- 
tion ; here the power. 



xxxn 

The GOSPEL of LABOR 



For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us: for we behaved 
not ourselves disorderly among you; neither did we eat any man's 
bread for nought; but wrought with labour and travail night and 
day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you: not because 
we have not power, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you 
to follow us. For even when we were with you, this we commanded 
you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we 
hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, work- 
ing not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we 
command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quiet- 
ness they work, and eat their own bread. — 2 Thess. 3 : 7-12. 

Consider the text. 

It was to a church in a Grecian city that Paul 
taught this Hebrew morality. KW Jewish custom. 
Paul's feeling was that of the rabbis. It used to be 
their boast, not dependent on fees of disciples. They 
took titles ostentatiously from their manual trades. 
Rabbi Judah, ben Ilai, called the Wise, the orator, had 
a trade, and used to say, " Labor honors the laborer." 

Rabbi Ismael, a needle-maker. 

Rabbi Jose, ben Chalafta, a tanner. 

Rabbi Jochanan, a shoemaker. 

Rabbi Simon, a weaver. 

Rabbi Joseph, a carpenter. 

The Apostle Paul, a tent-maker. 

136 



The GOSPEL of LABOR 137 

a. We must recollect that this was the sentiment 
of the scholars, the real politicians of Israel. 

b. State of society different now, and many 
cannot literally live by a trade or manual calling, 
but the spirit of the exhortation remains. 

Consider : 

i. Text, and reasons. 

2. i Thess. 4:11, 12. (Do your own business, and 
work with your hands.) 

3. 1 Cor. 4:12. (We toil, working with our own 
hands.) Eph. 4: 28. (Let him that stole steal no more: 
rather let him labour, working with his hands.) 

4. Acts 20:33, 34- (Ye yourselves know that these 
hands ministered to my necessities, and to them that 
were with me.) 

These passages show how important Paul thought 
actual manual labor to be, and that mainly on moral 
grounds. 

But the following are some of the reasons for us to 
consider as to working with one's own hands. 

1. A sense of personal independence. 

2. That one may take care of himself, and not be a 
hanger-on upon other people's bounty. 

3. Honesty to others. Keep selves honest. Not 
tempted by necessities to steal or gain by indirection. 

4. Ability to help others. That beautiful saying of 
Christ: " It is more blessed to give than to receive." 

These are Christian grounds. There is special need 
of urging them now. The influences at work in towns 
and cities require sharp correction. 

I. Vast numbers of the young crowd the cities, where 
they are seeking to escape from farms, shops, and 
mechanical pursuits, 



138 SERMON BRIEFS 

i. They clog all the professions. 

2. They choke the ways of commercial life. 

3. They swarm the doors of office. It is an honor- 
able thing to hold honorably a public position of trust; 
but that is not the spirit of the office-seekers of to-day. 
I would speak kindly, for sore distress goads many of 
them. 

II. Aside from this migration and its consequences, 
there are many causes at work which prevent young 
men from gaining a livelihood by work who ought to 
do it. 

1. I recognize the law that one has a right to use his 
powers to the best advantage, and may leave a trade 
or farm for merchant's office, studio, pulpit, or forum. 
But O^gr 3 the reverse is also true: men who, by social 
connections and lesser intellectual gifts are better fitted 
for lower positions, should go to manual labor. 

2. But often they meet a strong repugnance among 
friends. False ambitions ; shame of manual callings — 
the foundry, the machine-shop, the printing office, the 
garden. Hence, many men all their life are doing poorly 
what they do not like, and are not suffered to do what 
befits their nature, and what they could do well. 

3. The slowness of gain in the lower grades of work, 
another influence. Men think the city and its vocations 
lead to quick prosperity. Making haste to be rich the 
vice of our times. 

4. The smallness of gain compared with their ambi- 
tion leads many to rush into commerce and trade, into 
speculation and other arenas for which they are not fit, 
and in which they find only disaster and disappointment. 

5. False notions of manhood incompatible with culture 
and refinement. Excessive work is indeed drudgery; 



THE GOSPEL of LABOR *39 

but moderate labor gives time for culture if there is 

the wish. 

6. A fatal spirit of self-indulgence; a desire of ease; 

an unwillingness to exert one's self — unfortunate 

accompaniment of civilization. 

In view of these facts, especially prevalent in our day: 
i. It should be a part of every Christian household 

to bring up the children to work; develop ingenuity to 

know how to turn their hand to anything. Must revive 

old-fashioned ways. 

2. It would be well, particularly in such times as ours, 
to develop in the household as many productive indus- 
tries as possible. 

3. Parents should encourage their children to habits 
of honorable independence; to let them learn trades 
or husbandry even if they are not forced to depend 
upon it. 

4. God's lesson of to-day: Work more; spend less. 
Study thrift; practice and learn to love industry; be 
less extravagant. 



xxxm 

GODLIKENESS 



But we all, with open [unveiled] face beholding as in a glass the 
glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to 
glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord. — 2 Cor. 3:18. 

I. This is a subtle truth, the terms of which we find 
it difficult to state, but the meaning of which is clear. 

We look into a mirror and see the beauty of God. 
That image of divine glory, glowing on the face of him 
that looks upon it, leaves its impress there, so that at 
length the divine picture is really our portrait. By 
beholding, we have been changed into the image, and 
we see ourselves when we see our God. 

It is poetic and beautiful as an illustration; but the 
truth is even more important, viz., the power which in- 
heres in superior being to reproduce itself in others. 

We will gather up the traces of this action among men. 

1. It is intellectually true. A man of strong endow- 
ments involuntarily, and by his native dynamism, brings 
out the thinking power of men about him; and that in 
proportion to the natural strength and susceptibility of 
the corresponding element in them. 

2. It is so, morally and esthetically. A person of 
natural and powerful equity keys up the conscience. 
One may leaven a town — a generation. 

A person of refinement, if of a commanding nature, 
appeals to the same feeling (whatever there is of it) in 
140 



GODLIKENESS 141 

every crowd. That appeal is sometimes shown in their 
anger and resistance, but that is because this rising 
feeling is in conflict with other dominant passions, and 
introduces antagonism. 

3. It is so dispositionally. A good-natured man 
carries a cheerful and hopeful atmosphere. 

A real benevolent and good man. 

A generous and sympathizing man. 

APPLICATION TO MEN 

I may make this practical application before going on. 

a. In selecting company, watch what elements 
are strongest when a friend leaves you. 

b. The indispensable condition of doing good is 
to have in great power in yourself the feeling which 
you wish to inspire. 

c. The blessedness of that state in which one 
unconsciously sheds forth good! 

APPLY TO GOD 

But now consider that this element of power works in 
its lowest sphere among men; and that a truth of strik- 
ing importance, even inhumanity, must rise to superla- 
tive grandeur in the sphere of divine life. 

Consider what full, infinite power resides in each 
attribute of God. 

The best things in the best men are on earth mere rills. 
Our faculties are nascent. " It doth not yet appear." 
But in God, being is, in degree and potenc)^, beyond 
analogy or illustration. 

Apply infinity and omnipotence, not physically, but 
morally, to love, pity, justice, truth, etc., and see that 
the influence of the universe is personal. 



142 SERMON BRIEFS 

II. Ob]. But it will be replied that no adequate results 
appear answering to this force. 

i. I tin. Hold up to the sun an unpolished plate of 
glass. No reflection. Then rub a spot. The sun's 
image begins to appear. Enlarge it till it covers the 
whole surface, and the polished surface will reflect all 
of the sun that it can receive. 

2. Now, men as a race are simply emergent. The 
effect is slow — hardly seen for ages. Still there is a 
change for the better. 

3. But consider that all this betterment of the race 
in its long development and pilgrimage is the fruit of 
direct inspiration. 

ff^P^ Consider that (man receiving little by little all 
he could) God made natural laws, as it were, receptacles 
of his wisdom, and filled society gradually with laws and 
institutions whose slowly developing justice, kindness, 
truth, etc., were a part of the Divine Spirit. This, then, 
is the stimulating nature of God. Men take it by slow 
degrees, but they do receive, and grow by it. 

We may believe, then, that at last this change of 
humanity to godliness shall be effected. 

1. The pure in heart shall see God. 

2. The reason why hours of communion, prayer, 
meditation, are so powerful on Christian character. 

3. The nature of the heavenly society as we look 
forward to it. 

4. The presence of God when we shall see him as he is. 
Now we see through a glass — in a mirror — dimly, 

but then face to face. 



XXXIV 
SOUND-MINDEDNESS 



Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded. — Titus 2:6. 

I. The terms sober, sobriety, sober-minded, have in 
the English New Testament use a different range of 
meaning from that which popular use now gives them. 

1. Now, sober and sobriety are the antithesis of gayety, 
exhilaration, mirth. 

2. It is supposed that religion is sober in a sense that 
excludes wit, the overflow of joyous spirits. 

3. But no such meaning went with the terms trans- 
lated sober, sobriety. They are in other places trans- 
lated sound, sound-mindedness ; signifying a mind not 
over-excited — by drink, by passions, by frivolities and 
pleasures — but maintaining its equipoise, its power of 
right judgment and earnestness. 

You will better understand the thing than a definition 
of it. 

You know a man roused up and thoroughly in earnest, 
so that his judgment has something to do, has the ad- 
vantage of an inspiration of all the feelings. There is a 
directness, a purpose, and so a weigh tiness and sobriety, 
in a man bound upon an important purpose that all 
men feel and acknowledge. 

It is this deep purpose, this earnestness of mind, 
arising from a worthy aim and endeavor, that enters 

i43 



144 SERMON BRIEFS 

the apostle's " sober-mindedness." It is such an 
earnest and manly state of mind that I proceed to 
inculcate. 

If Paul spoke thus to those of his age, under such 
governments, with such a restricted field of enterprise 
as they experienced, how much more is the exhortation 
needed in our age, in our land, and by our young 
men! 

Consider. 

1. Every one is charged with the unfolding of his 
powers, and the full education of himself. The ideal is 
higher than ever. The means are more nearly within 
reach of all. The motives are more searching and 
imperative. 

II. Every young man is to prepare himself for that 
department of life in which he is to find means of liveli- 
hood and a full exercise of his powers. 

i. Fortunately, most men are born poor, and make 
their own way in life. 

2. Even if not so, engrossing occupation is an indis- 
pensable condition of happiness and goodness. 

(CEp" The earlier the aim of life is settled, the better. 

Then, every one should maintain the feeling con- 
stantly that he has a purpose which quickens, engages, 
and tasks him. 

3. With some it is: 

a. Manual skill. Not to allow this to seem a 
drudgery ; O^P^ still less a menial or degrading 
necessity. Nothing of labor is unworthy when 
the mind inspires with it a worthy motive. 

$W It is not work, but ignorance in the work- 
man that makes it inferior. 



SOUND-MINDEDNESS H5 

The relative respectability of work depends 
upon the amount of mind-power men are supposed 
to require, and exhibit in it, etc. 

b. With others it is a professional life, i. e., 
vocations which require thought more than does 
manual craft. In the beginning, tedious; end 
remote; time of preparation longer: but noble and 
remunerating. 

III. The preparation for common citizenship. 

i. Never before such a sphere of intelligence, power 
and dignity, given to each citizen. 

2. To fitly use this requires an education, both in 
ideas and moral sense, greater than we at all adequately 
conceive. 

Nature of government to be carried on; 
Nature of questions to adjudicate; 
Nature of policies to be maintained. 
d^ 3 Our relation to human kind. 

3. Bearing of this on universal suffrage. 

4. Our subject in hand, sober-minded preparation. 

IV. The sphere of benevolent activity to each range 

of faculty, from material up through social and artistic 
to moral, was never on so large a field; so much need of 
laborers, or such evident need of preparation. 

V. Never before so clearly seen, the meaning of Ye 
are workers together with God. The mind-power of 

the world is intense, speeding. 
All nature works; 
All holy spirits work; 
All malign spirits work; 
" Why stand ye here all the day idle! " 



U6 SERMON BRIEFS 

i. There must be place in this conspectus for gayety 
and amusement. They are as definitely profitable as 
sleep or food. They are duties. They have a moral 
relation and result. 

2. A life of activity and earnestness is a duty only on 
the ground of relation to success; but it is a condition 
of happiness according to the law of the mind. 

No retiring till age wears out; O^^ nor ought men, 
even when old, to give way easily; for nothing wears 
out life faster than having nothing to do; and nothing 
keeps up strength better than moderate engagements. 

3. The ignominiousness of a life without an aim or 
purpose — living for nothing — a weed — a cumberer of 
the ground. Its ignobleness argued from insensibility 
to the highest motives and noblest opportunities. 

4. Unutterable baseness and wickedness of a life, 
not only without purpose, but given over to self-indul- 
gence, to fleshly lusts, to degradation. 

5. The indispensable need of every young man is 
God's Spirit: 

To clear his vision; 

To inspire in him a high and holy ambition; 

To restrain his appetites; 

To keep up his courage and patience; 

To awaken true benevolence in him; 

To sustain him in his course to the end. 



XXXV 

FIDELITY to CONVICTION: ABRAHAM'S 
CALL to SACRIFICE 



I. The history: Gen. 22. 

II. A consideration of several topics. An Arabian 
sheik, or prince, living on the very borders of Palestine, 
and along the edge of deserts. Beersheba. 

1. The command. However it came: — whether by 
dream or by vision or by vivid impression of thought, 
we do not know : but Abraham accepted it as a Divine 
ordering. There is not a word about the effect pro- 
duced on the patriarch's mind; yet we know well 
enough that it must have been terrible. Cannot con- 
ceive of a shock more dreadful. 

a. It was a command of human sacrifice. It is 
reputed that human sacrifice was customary in 
nations round about, and that may have suggested 
unconsciously to him this test of his faith. 

b. It was his only son, his every parental hope, — 
for he was an old man. The pride of father, and 
prince. 

c. All God's promises of his future bound up in 
Isaac. The thing commanded combined an imi- 
tation of the worst elements of the heathen, a 
crime against natural feelings, and the overthrow of 
God's promises to Abraham. 

>47 



J48 SERMON BRIEFS 

2. Prompt obedience. " Early in the morning." 

a. Might have hesitated long; not whether to 
obey a divine command, but whether any evidence 
could make such a command divine. 

In that early period: no Bible, no priest but 
himself, no church but his family, no public senti- 
ment, no laws but the customs of the desert, no 
long recorded histories. There was nothing but 
himself and these occasional teachings of God. 

3. The place, Moriah. 

Three days' journey from Beersheba. May have been 
Mount Moriah, on which Jerusalem afterwards was built, 
and many have so loved to think it, and even supposed 
it to be the very spot on which two thousand years 
afterwards Christ was offered — the Lamb of God. 

4. (C^P^ The simplicity, dramatic grandeur, of Isaac 
and his father alone; their conversation. The delicacy 
with which the father avoids disclosing. 

The unresisting element in Isaac, such was the 
supremacy of father in the patriarchal day. 
In view of this history, as it stands: 

I. Was Abraham right in doing a thing against the 
light of nature, by any authority? 

1. It is not a question of what would be right in us 
now, after four thousand years of experience, but then, 
with the only light he had. 

2. Was it against the light of nature? The nations 
which had no other light but nature, at one or another 
period of their history, fell into human sacrifice, testi- 
fying supreme devotion. 

3. He received the command according to the method 
by which he had received all his instruction in divine 
things. 



FIDELITY to CONVICTION 149 

II. Is it a myth, a parable, or was it real? Of no 
consequence! What does it teach? 

III. Why should God try, or prove, or tempt? Did he 
not know just as well before what his servant would do ? 

i. It was not for himself; 

2„ For Abraham; 

3. For the whole world, that was to need nothing 
more than fidelity to convictions. 

The story did that work. Two thousand years, and 
Paul tells the story. Two thousand more, and that 
heroic devotion breathes courage and faith in a thousand 
troubled souls to-day. 

IV. Should we be justified in doing the same thing on 
a like impression? Why not? 

1. Because that which we might justify in a child 
would be disallowed in a man. 

2. The appointed methods of knowing the Divine 
will determine. 

a. Then, by visions and communings of the seer; 

b. Now, by reason acting on experience. 

V. Fidelity to convictions is the true significance of 
this history. 



^>" 






XXXVI 
GROWTH in GRACES 



And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; 
and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to 
temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness 
brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these 
things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither 
be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
— 2 Pet. i : 5-8. 

I. There seems to have been in the apostle's mind 
the image of that eager acquisitiveness which men mani- 
fest in worldly things. These Christian traits may be 
regarded as so many precious stones; or so much prop- 
erty; or so many dignities; or so many curiosities and 
rarities of art, adorning a mansion. 

1. Every one conversant with education has watched 
the rise and progress of scholars' enthusiasms for col- 
lections, — it may be in natural histories, minerals, 
botanic collections, entomology, or what not. 

The largeness, the growth of zeal; the pleasure of 
each new acquisition; the sense of incompleteness of 
the collection while more remains to be gathered. Ex- 
changes set on foot ; eagerness and joyfulness at rare prizes. 

As the scholar grows in knowledge and breadth of 
interests, he gathers other things. Sometimes it is a 
collection of books. Traits and peculiarities. 

Sometimes etchings, engravings, and pictures. 

150 



GROWTH in GRACES J5I 

Sometimes coins, medals, etc. 

Sometimes jewels and precious stones. Not alone 
pearls and diamonds, but opals, emeralds, rubies, ame- 
thysts, topaz, etc. Some peculiarities. 

a. The fervor and diligence of pursuit. 

b. The pleasure of the new is even greater than 
of that already gained. 

So here in Christian virtues, the apostle exhorts 
us to add — add — ADD ! 
2. The same illustration might be drawn from men's 
zeal for property. 

a. Land is always hungry for land. 

b. Money always is lonesome. 

c. Men almost never have enough. 

Illn. Hang up two bells in Wall Street, one named 
" More," and the other " Enough." i. Thousands 
throng around one; its ringing is incessant. 2. The 
other is stiff for want of ringing. Moss would grow on 
its very tongue and rust on its hinges. 

This is so in all varieties of property: 

Gold and silver, to some; 

Ships to others; 

Bonds, mortgages and stocks to others. 

" Add — add — add! " says wealth. 

And so the apostle says, Seek Christian wealth. And 
having gained some, add more, and more. 

II. But some will say, Is there any ground but fancy 
for such analysis? Is not the human mind already 
framed, its faculties established, and can any skill or 
diligence multiply or diminish the number? And, since 
Christian graces are only the human faculties acting 
upon Divine patterns and under Divine influence, how 
can there be multiplication of graces? 



J52 SERMON BRIEFS 

In two ways, — by the education of primary faculties, 
and by the production of complex and secondary states. 

i. Every one needs to have an education that shall 
harmoniously develop each of the primary powers of 
the mind and soul. Some need more caution; some 
need to restrain it. Intellect, too predominant or too 
weak. Some are over hopeful. There is need of re- 
straint on some and stimulus to others. There are those 
who need the whip here and the rein there. 

2. Yet it is not chiefly here that acquisition takes 
place, but secondarily, in the combination and habits 
of the primary faculties. 

llln. a. The primary colors are few, but color 
has infinite range and gradation. 

b. In organic chemistry the elements which 
constitute vegetation are few; but how vast are 
the forms, varieties and qualities of the vegetable 
kingdom ! 

c. The power of each of the ten primary numbers 
is fixed ; but in combination — infinity ! 

d. The letters of the alphabet are the sources of 
all written literature, the springs being few, but the 
rivers endless. All English books in the world 
spring from an alphabet of twenty -six letters. 

e. The musical scale is limited, but the variations 
of musical effects are limitless — insects in the 
field, birds in the trees, men chanting on earth, and 
angels sounding forth their loves in heaven, endless ! 
Thus it is in the inflections of Christian feeling. 

III. Let us turn from illustration to the positive. 

i. Single graces, or good qualities, are not to be de- 
spised, but they are not either to be deemed substitutes 
or equivalents for many that we should have. 



GROWTH in GRACES J53 

Men set off a single possession against eminent lack. 
One is irritable, fickle, talkative, yet benevolent. Men 
keep a grace as an apology for other graces which are 
wanting. 

2. In general, the strength of each Christian grace will 
be in proportion to the fullness of the circle of graces. 
There may be special exceptions when the whole force 
of life exaggerates and even deforms some single fac- 
ulties; but the fullness of the whole mind, its culture, 
vigor and composite richness, give power to each indi- 
vidual trait. And the force of each grace depends upon 
the general power of the soul that lies behind. 

Illn. In a music-box, the separate tongues of metal 
represent single notes; but their power of vibration is 
derived from the barrel that revolves, and lifts, and lets 
spring again each metallic finger. 

3. Christian graces were designed to be collective. 
They tend to grow in clusters. 

a. The end aimed at in Christian culture requires 
all, not some; not acts of goodness; not isolated 
values, but character. 

The most solemn annunciation of this is in the 
verse preceding the text — " that ye might be 
partakers of the Divine nature." 

Illn. Building a house. Every part dependent 
on the others — roof, foundation, floor, stairs, 
windows, all needed. 

b. That Divine influence, which generates each 
one, is the proper condition for the outgrowth of all. 
It is that quickening spirit that suffuses the soul 
with Divine love, and then — 

Illn. As heat in summer quickens everything, 
so in the soul, and in that condition the most oppo- 
site traits are stimulated. 



154 SERMON BRIEFS 

c. The occasions of life demand and require the 
full complement of Christian traits, and not single 
or partial ones. 

Gentleness implies forgiveness, love, forbearance, 
patience and strength. 

Sympathy implies knowledge, tenderness, jus- 
tice, compassion, self-sacrificing helpfulness. 

4. Hence, there are many Christian experiences that 
no man can hope for without full and harmonious 
development. 

a. There are melodies, but if on a harp every 
third string is gone, how can it express them? 

b. There are harmonies requiring concordant and 
contemporaneous sounds, but if the bass or tenor 
be absent, the whole effect is lost, as if silence 
had prevailed. It is another thing that is pro- 
duced. 

KW c. Young and uneducated Christians must 
not expect a full choir. 

d. Joys of Christians should not be less, but more, 
as they progress in the divine life. 

5. Christian graces must be permanent. 

a. It is a law of moral excellences, as of any 
other kind, that we do well only those things which 
we do unconsciously. The things which we do by 
volition and inspection are always done stiffly and 
imperfectly. 

We never do well when we try, 

To walk; 

To write our name; 

To make an admirable thing; 

To be polite, graceful, natural. 

The moment you direct a man to self -conscious- 
ness you spoil his beauty of conduct. 



GROWTH in GRACES J55 

It is so with Christian traits. If you would have 
them in power and loveliness, you must be used to 
them — wear them as a familiar garment. " Clothed 
with humility." " Put on the Lord Jesus Christ." 
— Rom. 13 : 14. 

b. The exigencies which demand Christian graces 
will not allow us to prepare them when needed. 

Bin. Men who are violently sick: must not wait 
for medicines to be compounded. 

In battle. Surgeon cannot wait for instruments 
to be made. 

In attack, the armor, sword, must be read)^ — 
yea, on. See Eph. 6: 10-18. 
6. This will throw light on the imperfections of Chris- 
tian life. 

a. The ascetic attempt to throw away the body, 
like throwing away a knife-handle. May have 
chief deficiency in physical conditions; all powers 
needed. 

b. The imperfections of merely ethical princi- 
ples; they lack spiritual and inspirational elements. 

c. The extremists in spiritual life are given to 
contemplation, to fervor, to ecstacy, to the invisible. 
They cheat the opposite needs. 

d. Those who make too much, and those who 
make too little, of the social element. 

In fine, harmonious development of all Christian 
graces. " These ought ye to have done and not to 
leave the other undone." 



XXXVII 
CARE 



Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Let your 
moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be 
careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication 
with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And 
the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your 
hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. — Phil. 4: 4-7. 

1. The duty of joy or happiness. 

2. The implication that this springs from moderation 
of desires. 

3. The positive and direct command to restrain care; 
and the exhortation, by prayer and thanksgiving, to 
meet care in its very origin, and overcome it. 

The result of such religious philosophy is peace. 

The passage is rich, not simply in secular wisdom, 
and economic training, but in the divinest philosophy. 
Joy being the starting point, its enemies — cares — are 
to be destroyed, and joy is to terminate in its highest 
condition — peace. 

When single parts of the mind are pleasurably excited 
they produce joy; but when a high and noble excitement 
carries up alike all parts of the mind, one part modify- 
ing another, the result is peace. A mind partly happy 
produces joy. A mind wholly happy comes to peace, 
or the equalization of joy. 

156 



CARE 157 

As yet, very little is known of the laws of happiness. 
Our pursuit of it is empirical, and to a great extent is 
checked and flawed by care, which is a fatal mildew. 
Our instruction in this matter is usually very general; 
as, that we should moderate our desires; should live 
for another world; should put a truer estimate on 
earthly things. Wise and good as this is, it yet fails, 
in many cases, to reach the secret causes of anxiety. 

Illn. It is as if one should exhort to neatness in house- 
keeping, to good taste and economy, but should say 
nothing of vermin, and set no traps for rats, and pre- 
scribe no means of ridding seams and partitions of mice 
or roaches. 

Care may be defined as such a mode of employing our 
faculties upon every-day business as shall produce pain 
rather than happiness, in the minute and common duties 
of life. It is distinguished from sorrow, from anguish, 
by minuteness and degree, rather than by kind, just as 
a smart is distinguished from an ache; the sting of a 
nettle from the piercing of a thorn ; the bite of an insect 
from the bite of a dog. 

A spirit of care is the result of immoderation of desires ; 
of evil or disproportioned dispositions; or of an unregu- 
lated spirit of duty. Some seem to run into it from 
innate tendencies; but it cannot be doubted that to a 
great extent men are deliberately educated into it. 
The example of parents ; the general tenor of rebuke and 
criticism in the f amity; the spirit of economic life; and 
an impression that cheerfulness is related to levity, 
and anxious care a symptom of conscience and man- 
liness. 

But let us with more particularity point out the 
sources of that painful way of carrying the mind in 
common duties that is styled Care. 



J58 SERMON BRIEFS 

i. An excessive particularity about little things soon 
draws away the mind from the general course of events, 
and both shortens and narrows it. Particularity is 
important; children should be taught carefulness of 
details; there should be a conscience formed about 
trifles and unseen duties; men should be educated to 
thoroughness for its own sake: but in striving for this 
just and true end, parents, teachers and overseers fall 
into the error of nervous care — into such a keen sense of 
the evil of carelessness that they commit the other error 
of care. Thus the pinning of a dress, the points of per- 
sonal cleanliness, the details of order in a room, school 
or shop; the arrangement of furniture or table furnish- 
ings, are zealously watched, criticised, and at length 
blamed, not in proportion to their importance. This 
is a danger of household life. It is a special danger of 
enterprise and neatness in domestic economy. It runs 
into a mania with some to whom regularity and neat- 
ness are supreme moral conditions, and small faults, 
inaccuracies, and inattentions are judged and condemned 
with a severity which is proper only tor grave moral 
offenses. 

The mischief is great in those who become domestic 
policemen of little faults; but it does not limit itself to 
them. It produces in the young an inaccurate moral 
judgment. There can be no largeness of conscience in 
men who are brought up to think that tangled hair or 
a torn coat are offenses nearly as reprehensible as theft 
or intoxication. And such disproportion of emphasis 
either disgusts children into indifference of little things 
or sharpens them into idolatry of them, so that all their 
life long they become moral microscopists. 

It seems to have been this that our Saviour remarked 
in Martha. It was not her fidelitv to the household 



CARE 159 

duty, but a troublesome addiction. " Martha, Mar- 
tha, thou art troubled about many things"; i. e., little 
things, a thousand petty details that hide the general 
whole which they compose. 

2. Care is the illegitimate child of conscience. Most 
men have little enough conscience. Those who feel 
the pressure of this faculty are not infrequently ill- 
taught in its management and application. Conscience 
has been supposed to be a voice of God — an inspiration 
of right — a moral and intellectual discerning of right 
and wrong by its inherent power; but conscience is a 
moral sentiment differing in law in nothing from any 
other sentiment. Like benevolence, or hope, or vener- 
ation, or self-respect, it is a mere emotion, blind and 
undirected in itself, and wholly dependent for right 
direction and application upon the intellect. It is 
therefore the subject of education and discipline. It 
needs to be trained to form right habits, and to be limited 
by the existence and action of other sentiments. 

There may be a common-sense conscience, a super- 
stitious conscience, an ignorant conscience, a pragmati- 
cal conscience, a nervous and trivial conscience. It 
may be sensible or foolish. It may act broadly or 
narrowly. It may regard general results with philo- 
sophical wisdom, or see only details. It may work for 
the minutes and seconds, but not for days and years. 

Conscience may be generous or suspicious. It may 
be magnanimous or grudging and unforgetting. It may 
inspire justice, or it may organize cruelty. Just as 
conscience is educated, it will be a supreme blessing or a 
multifarious curse. 

The mere fact, then, that men act conscientiously is 
not a proof that they are either good or wise. It is a 
good conscience well directed that avails. It is from 



J60 SERMON BRIEFS 

a morbid conscience, from narrow and superstitious 
consciences, that spring cares in endless numbers, sharp 
pertinacity, and skillfulness to destroy happiness. 

If to a nervous conscience be joined the inspirations 
of ideality so that the ideal of life and character is high, 
and the sense of fitness and congruity acute, a case is 
prepared for almost boundless care and suffering. The 
want of practical trust in God, an ignorance of the laws 
and conditions of human attainment, the want of faith 
in the love and pardon of Christ, the dull and drudging 
sense of imperfection, the acute sense of actual sin, 
fill the soul with trouble which may burst into storms, 
but at least fill the heaven with clouds and dreary chill. 

3. We pass to a more frequent and less curable, 
though not so painful, a cause of care — love of appro- 
bation. God has framed the mind to receive a large 
and various influence from the supposed opinions of 
other minds. It is this element, more than any other, 
that mingles men in society harmoniously. Limited 
by conscience, and educated, it is permanently civilizing, 
and the source of pleasure, the vigilant sentinel against 
dangers; but no sooner do we suffer it to become the 
leading feeling than we experience an intolerable des- 
potism. We survey ourselves in the light of others' 
uncertain opinions. We have bred within us innu- 
merable frets and anxieties lest we shall fall from grace. 
We put ourselves to tasks of sobriety and antics of 
frivolity to win favor or conciliate criticism. We sub- 
ject our persons, clothes, manners, and pleasures to this 
capricious tribunal. We aspire, through this medium, 
to position, to influence, to authority. We are tempted 
to invade the enchanted land of appearances and pre- 
tenses; and then, when once we attempt what we are 
not, or more than we are, we enter upon a part of which 



CARE M 

the result will never be known. In fashion, in pleasure, 
in the rounds of pretentious society, in the unwholesome 
ambitions of mere wealth without culture, or other 
sense than money sense, men are to be seen innumer- 
able, fretted with little feverish fears, with festering 
desires, with hopes that blossom inodorously, and cares 
that bear as many spines as the cactus or the nettle. 

4. The sensitiveness of Temper is another fruitful 
source of care; i. e., of a painful carriage of our faculties 
in common things. 

This is chiefly a question of nerve, in the conduct of 
faculty; largely affected by health, condition, pros- 
perity. 

But a man of low temperament, of sensibility of 
nerve, of fastidiousness of taste, of self-sufficiency, of 
pride, is set down in the decrees for unhappiness. 
Nothing suits him. The world does not consult his 
exquisite convenience. Men and women were fashioned 
without consulting his fine tastes. They are too rough 
or too fine. They are too strict or too careless. They 
are too masculine or too feminine. Something is thrown 
into every mixture that offends his taste. Some color 
blends in every combination that offends his eye. It 
never occurs to him that the world is right and he is 
wrong. He is always right: it is this wicked world 
that is wrong. And from men, he falls to abusing com- 
munities, and history, and Providence, and finally, 
since life has nothing in it good enough for his godship, 
he doubts whether there is much God, and he is sure 
there is no religion. 

This is but a single specimen of a great multitude of 
men whom pride and temper make irritable, and to 
whom life gives daily an unlimited opportunity to fret 
and complain. 



162 SERMON BRIEFS 

5. A less blamable but very potent cause of care 
springs from the misdirecting action of Fear. In timid 
natures, unless sheltered like tender plants by garden 
walls, this is a source of perpetual chill and suffering; 
but with more robust natures there is a great waste of 
strength and happiness from unconsidered and latent 
influences of fear, in the shape of anxiety. A low and 
apprehensive mood which sees all manner of risks and 
dangers in the future — that deals with imaginary forces, 
weaves fanciful possibilities, etc. 

This belongs not only to the realm of avarice, but to 
the realm of love as much. It belongs to poverty, but 
it grows with prosperity, and makes the strong and 
rich miserable. 

APPLICATIONS 

I. A fair examination and ascertainment of quality 
of your mental action is worth your making. 

Are you happy? 

Are you unhappy? and causes? 

II. The false notions of a duty of sadness. 
Pain is remedial, and penal. 

Joy is normal. It is duty. You are to command it, 
to make provision for it. 

III. Distinction between seeking pleasure as the end 
of life, and such carriage of the mind that the action of 
the faculties shall be pleasurable. 

IV. Religion a corrective of care. 

1. Moderation of desire. 

2. Activity, for others' good rather than own. 

3. The larger life, which disarms the ills of this one. 

4. The views of Father God in providence. 



XXXVffl 
CHRISTIAN PATIENCE 



Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen 
thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord. — Psalm 27 : 14. 

Nothing is harder to the natural impatience of a 
strong will and an impetuous disposition, than to be 
obliged, in the presence of objects of vehement desire, 
to stand still, and wait patiently, uncomplainingly, and 
courageously. Therefore one has attained to an emi- 
nent degree of Christian grace who knows how to wait, 

Right waiting for God implies: 

1. Strong lawful desire unaccomplished. 

2. Confidence in God, in his love, wisdom, and power, 
and that the blessing is withheld or refused for all- 
sufficient reasons. 

3. Such a submission of one's self and one's whole 
life to God's better will that, if God please, we will 
forego the dearest objects, and that cheerfully and 
lovingly. 

To understand the matter more thoroughly, let us 
premise one or two considerations. 

1. Human activity, the desire of lawful objects, and 
striving for them With earnest hopefulness, is a part of 
the divine scheme of nature. It is the method of edu- 
cation and training. It is not wrong to desire — to be 
stirred up to the utmost exertion. 

163 



1 64 SERMON BRIEFS 

2. But this human necessity acts within a narrow 
circuit, and is met and restrained by great opposite 
tendencies. 

a. That there is a limitation in the human power 
of achieving. 

b. That special and personal ends must be sought 
in harmony with the general course of nature. 

c. That our desire cannot hasten anything that 
needs time for ripening, or that is so complex that 
one part must wait upon another. 

3. Hence, waiting and courage are joined together. 

4. The two classes that must need this are: 

a. Those who are of an impetuous and domineer- 
ing temper; of a despotic will, and who refuse to 
be thwarted. 

b. Those of aspiration and enthusiasm of enter- 
prise, who live to accomplish. 

Let us now consider some of the circumstances in 
which Christian men are called to wait upon God. 

I. In the whole work of sanctification as an individual 
experience. 

1. The ardor of the soul for full and complete holi- 
ness — times of intense desire — the longing for it now, 
and fully. 

2. The kingdom of heaven is a growth; and that im- 
plies periods of delay. We are to gain some things by 

a. Direct effort and volition; 

b. vSome, by sorrow and pain; 

Illn. Rolling iron castings in a drum — attrition. 

c. Some, by the social influence of others upon us; 

d. Some, by the physical changes of nature; 

e. Some, by successive labors. No man can be- 
come suddenly holy. 



CHRISTIAN PATIENCE i65 

Our aspirations, then, are occasions of waiting. It 

runs through the whole strife of Christian life. Like 
the woman of Samaria, we don't want to draw water. 

II. The same law of labor and waiting applies to our 
exertions in behalf of others. 

i. We have a limited power of producing moral 
changes in others. This becomes a strong desire in 
Christians. Nobler is it than architecture, statuary, 
painting. 

2. There is a variety of reasons why the wisest efforts 
will be long in producing fruit. 

a. You may work imperfectly; 

b. There are other workers who hinder; 

c. Much must come from time. 

III. Impatience with the existence of evil in society 

unfruitful. 

IV. Applied to our own relations with external cir- 
cumstances. 

i. Sickness and sorrow; 

2. Cares and burdens; 

3. Poverty and straitness; 

4. Perplexities and exigencies in life. 
(James 5: 7, 10, n.) 



XXXIX 
GOD'S WILL 



And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, The 
will of the Lord be done. — Acts 21 : 14. 

This is the artless record of one of Paul's experiences. 
It is full of instruction and comfort, — although one would 
not think it great to look on it, and although when it 
was penned it is not likely that its reach and importance 
were suspected. 

There is an analogy in geology : many a fern or more 
highly organized plant that laid its cheek to the clay 
and died, offered the most insignificant event appar- 
ently conceivable; yet, after thousands and thousands 
of years, comes the geologist, and when the engineer 
or miner lays bare the plant's figure stamped on the 
stone, the philosopher reads in it the proof of the con- 
ditions of things ages ago. It is just the fact, it may be, 
needed to establish certain great theories ; and this poor 
vegetable, unnoticed when alive and not heeded when 
dead, finds itself after many ages summoned as a witness 
into the schools where men are learning by what steps 
and in what order God built the earth. 

So, many an event or record of event in Scripture, 
that had little significance at the time of its happening, 
becomes very important in later ages. 

The case in hand was this: 

166 



GOD'S WILL *67 

Paul, on his way toward Jerusalem, had reached 
Caesarea. Here came in a prophet — Agabus — who took 
Paul's girdle, went through the form, on himself, of bind- 
ing a prisoner, and said: " Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So 
shall the Jews of Jerusalem bind the man that owneth 
this girdle and shall deliver him into the hands of the 
Gentiles." 

i. The company, Paul himself included, believed 
the prophet. When he predicted Paul's fate, they all 
accepted it as true. 

2. Why, then, did they set themselves against it, 
trying to persuade Paul not to go to Jerusalem? Is it 
lawful to strive against things which are ordained? 

It is. Things that are evils, or so to us, that lie 
before us and seem inevitable, may be resisted with all 
our power, in lawful ways. They took the natural and 
direct method: If Jerusalem will imprison Paul, then 
let Paul keep away from Jerusalem. 

3. Effect of their entreaty on Pauls mind. He and 
they thinking of different things. 

They, of his safety and their joy in him; 

He, of preaching Christ's name and being a witness 
for his truth. . 

The same foreseen event that alarmed them, stimu- 
lated him to heroism — ■ kindled his soul ! 

4. Effect of his attitude upon them. They had done 
all they could: when an event foreseen could not be 
changed by any power in their hands, they accepted 
the fact as an indication that it was the Lord's will. 
Having striven to the limit, they yielded, saying, " The 
will of the Lord be done." 

In the Lord's prayer, " Thy will be done on earth " 
seems generic, having respect to the spirit of nations, 
laws, customs, and policies: but here, in our text, we 



i6S SERMON BRIEFS 

see a personal use of this sentiment. It is the heart 
saying in regard to practical things in individual life, 
"Thy will be done." 

A man may earnestly desire the will of God to prevail 
in the matter of national justice, in the purification of 
the morals of society, in civilization and the elevation 
of all men to better conditions, in growing humanity, 
in refinement and knowledge, in the general improve- 
ment of conditions of human life at large — and yet, with 
all this aspiration for God's will, he may be quite un- 
willing that the will of the Lord should prevail in his 
private affairs. When it humbles his pride, disappoints 
his ambition, probes his selfishness, resists his cherished 
schemes, and overwhelms him with embarrassment — 
how is it then? 

It is the view of submission to God's will, that I shall 
enlarge upon. 

1. God reveals his will by his providence, through the 
administration of events. 

i. God's will has been revealed in regard to great 
moral truths as affecting human conduct and character : 
(i) In his Word, and (2) in human experiences — which 
follow natural laws just as much as do the facts of 
digestion or any department of bodily health. Soul is 
nature, more emphatically than body is! 

But this revelation is of principles. 

2. Under the light of such general principles men go 
forth and endeavor to organize a property, a family, a 
character, a life. 

^W Is there any such thing as the making known to 
man the will of God in that crowd of diverse ele- 
ments through which every man must make his way? 
We know what is right and wrong morally; but of 



GOD'S WILL i69 

right things not all can be ours. Can a man find 
any practical guide in life, respecting God's will in 
events ? 

a. Not any such knowledge of specific cases as 
of principles to be applied to cases. 

b. Only a general and gradual indication, tenta- 
tive, experimental, probable. 

Q^lF 3 Why did not God make duty plain? Why 
should men be left to find out, with pain and un- 
certainty, what way in life is best? 

Because men are here to work out divinity in 
themselves. The power of thought, discrimina- 
tion, judgment, and so responsibility, is rolled on 
them. 
3. The great truth remains that the events of life 
contain in them the letters of God's will to individuals, 
as to their fate, power, joy, success, failure, etc., but 
the reading of those letters is the art of life! 

II. There is, then, this peculiarity of our human posi- 
tion amid events, that we are to test them by the full 
and patient activity of all our powers. 

1. To secure good that eludes us; 

2. To avert evil that threatens. 

When we have measured our full resources, we are 
then to accept present conditions as God's will, and be 
children — submissive. 

III. The power of humanity to read God's will lies in 
the disposition. 

1. No submission is valid until it follows our utmost 
endeavor. Action is father of true submission. 

2. No energy is blessed which does not carry in it, 
latent, the spirit of final submissive resignation. 



170 SERMON BRIEFS 

OTFERENCES 

i. That God's providence is a revelation of his will, 

and that we must make it out. 

2. That there is no such thing as interpreting it, ex- 
cept in the spirit of sons — i. e., love and trust. 

Pride will not open it to us, nor anger, envy, jealousy, 
inordinate earthly affection: only the filial disposition 
towards the Father. 

3. That, in regard to ends in themselves, we have a 
right to energy, diligence, enterprise, courage. When 
these open nothing to us — then cheerful submission. 

APPLICATIONS 

1. Persons desiring to get an education. 

2. Persons striving to get free from griefs and 
entanglements. 

3. Our children not answering to our ambition. 

4. Poverty, distress, etc. 

IV. Dignity of life, as God's teaching medium; the 
literature of divine guidance — full of meaning, full of 
importance. 

V. Communion with God goes on, during all the con- 
fusions of life. 

Illn. Running "wild trains" on a railroad, by tele- 
graph from station to station; so we run from day 10 
day — pray — get wisdom, etc. 

VI. This whole life but an apprenticeship for the life 
to come. 



XL 
ACTING, and WAITING 



For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will 
of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he 
that shall come will come, and will not tarry. — Heb. 10: 36, 37. 

Patience may be insensitiveness — the quietness of 
those who do not feel. Then, it is simply impassivity, 
greater in an ox than in a man, and more in a stone than 
in either. 

But self-control, and contented waiting for that 
which we intensely desire, is another thing — a quality 
of disposition, a moral attribute, of no mean rank. To 
be patient under evils that do not afflict you, to bear 
sorrows which are not sorrowful, to endure burdens 
which do not oppress you, is not meritorious. 

1 . First in the order of development is the willingness 
to act for our present wants, and by means which 
require no important delay of forelooking. This is the 
habit of the languid tropics. 

2. Next come more remote wants — the anticipated 
needs of to-morrow, next month, or next year; and 
the preparation for them is longer. Yet, the cause is so 
near the effect that one can keep both in sight. 

3. Still higher would be the state which seeks import- 
ant ends by means which do not produce immediate 
results. We wait for success patiently a year or more. 
This, in the business world. 

171 



J72 SERMON BRIEFS 

4. Then come moral results, or invisible earthly- 
realities, and moral causes whose existence and agency 
are believed, by faith. The result is gradual, not 
measurable by the senses yet perceptible — sure. 

5. Finally, the highest reach is that in which remote 
and invisible spiritual benefits are sought, and though 
there is no manifest gaining of them, the soul is patient 
and assured, knowing that " in due time " — whenever 
that may be — it will reap what it sows. 

All this may be illustrated : 

a. One who angles for fish that he can see, etc. 

b. Another longer line for deeper water — for fish 
not seen, yet quickly biting and soon taken. 

c. Another line has to be set over night, and the fisher 
is patient till morning, etc. 

Hence, patience is itself a varying quality, and of 
different values, according to the length through which 
it stretches, and the remoteness of its operation from the 
senses. 

I. Life is full, overflowing, with instances where the 
result speedily follows the effort. It is not wrong, yet 
it is of the lowest sphere. Men in this sphere are acting 
by sense and sight, and not by faith. 

II. Every Christian is called to an activity far 
higher. 

To seek ends that are not visible, and to be patient 
and sure though the fruit be long delayed — this is the 
test of real Christian character. 

This view of the Christian spirit is particularly 
applicable to the work of preaching the gospel of Christ ; 
as distinguished from a philanthropic and scientific 
amelioration of physical conditions. 



ACTING, and WAITING J73 

a. These classes of labor ought not to be separate 
and antagonistic. He that forgave sins also healed 
sickness. Should be complementary; yet they are 
too often in different hands. 

b. Hence men say: " See what those charitable 
people do! Some reason in their work! Can see 
results. Common sense. But what is the use of 
preaching and praying? What can religion do? 
It is science that is to reform the world." 

That is, material things are more powerful than 
spiritual! Yet the sanctifi cation of the soul is 
higher than the regeneration of the body. It 
moves in a larger sphere; the results come not by 
observation, but are invisible. It is that which 
develops the need of faith and patience. 

Men need not be discouraged because there is no 
immediate fruit, if only they are putting in real, 
constant, earnest labor. Such seed will come up. 

III. All those — ministers, teachers, parents — who are 
laboring for the inner uplifting of men, are seeking ends, 
and in a sphere, to which our text is applicable. Be 
grateful for immediate results, but be sure of remote 
ones after you are gone, " Dead, yet speaketh! " 
To-day the best workers in the world are the spirits of 
men long departed. We have the example and see the 
moral power of the mighty dead. 

IV. These views are specially applicable to men who 
work against morbid passions: 

i. Bergh — Cruelty to animals; 

2. Brace, etc. — Care for children; 

3. Magdalen and midnight missions; 

4. Reformation of drunkards ; 



174 SERMON BRIEFS 

5. Those who would stay the flood of bribery and 
political corruption. 

6. Those who are easily discouraged, and throw up 
their hands, and say, " Oh, it is of no use," etc. 

V. Encouragement for those whose hearts are deeply 
enlisted in the elevation of the depressed and despised : 

1 . The emigrant. 

2. The negro. 

VI. The whole work and hope of God among the 
nations, etc. 



XLI 
The LOVE of PRAISE 



For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. — 
John 12: 43. 

The incident (chief rulers who believed on Jesus but 
dared not confess him). 

The way in which love of praise operated. Their 
religious standing — rulers — would be periled by fol- 
lowing Christ. Their love of human favor — of the 
good opinion of their neighbors — was stronger than 
their love of truth. 

The love of praise was not rebuked by Jesus, but the 
love of inferior praise. 

I. The love of praise fundamental in human nature — 

one of the earliest, deepest, most active and protean of 
all the mind's emotions — in all nations — in all ages. 

II. In the whole Scripture it is recognized, admitted, 
and abundantly employed, as a motive. Because it is 
not the highest, it is not then unworthy. The ascetic 
notion of crucifying it has no countenance in Scripture. 
We are, on the other hand, " to be honest in the sight 
of all men "; to ponder " whatsoever things are of good 
report"; to seek "glory, honor, and immortality," etc., 
etc. It is reprobated when (1), it is the sole motive of 

i75 



J76 SERMON BRIEFS 

things which should spring from higher reasons: " Pray, 
to be seen of men"; (2), when it seeks \mdeserving 
objects; as in the text. 

III. Such a feeling, capable of so much good and of so 
much evil, ought to be studied and educated. 

1. Instead of education, men try suppression. The 
result is infinite provocation, self-deception, and labor 
vainly spent. 

2. Education, must begin by yielding to it the rights 
and sanctities which belong to whatever God created. 

3. Education, instead of suppression, should train 
love of praise to act in association with pride. Char- 
acter is the partnership of faculties. By pride I mean, 
not the wicked, but the ennobling, self -elevating pride, 
which inspires men to a sense of what is becoming, noble, 
worthy of themselves. 

a. Without this, men are apt to love praise with- 
out any regard to source, reasons, and character; 
almost as much pleased with the groveling and 
most unworthy as with the highest. 

b. With this, men select, winnow, and dis- 
criminate. 

4. Education should train love of praise to move in 
partnership with conscience. This lays a solid founda- 
tion. It gives moral quality ; but chiefly in two respects : 

a. That we should desire praise for real traits or 
deeds — not for imaginary ones ; 

b. That there should be equity in the proportions; 
i. e., that praise should bear a due proportion to 
desert. 

O^p 3 Reprobate all attempts of men to gain by seemings 
— in personal conduct, in religion, in art, in literature, 
in public service, in housekeeping, and social position. 



The LOVE of PRAISE 177 

5. Education should combine love of praise with taste 
or ideality. This tendency redeems from grossness, 
animalism, and lifts one out of the slough of vulgarity, 
where we find: 

a. Love of praise for low and unworthy acts ; 

b. Relish for praise which leads one to stoop to 
evil associates. 

6. Love of praise should be educated with spirituality. 
It should feel the attraction of a higher Being, the reality 
of the future, of a new character, and of a higher destiny. 

" Praise of God more than of men." All other praise 
becomes harmless and allowable the moment the soul 
accepts God's thoughts as supreme and regulative. 

APPLICATION 

1. The question of glory. Is it allowable? 

a. Not all, or indiscriminate; i. e., mere applause. 

b. But a desire of praise for noble qualities and 
deeds is allowable. 

c. The want of such ambition is demoralizing. 
Society needs more high-mindedness among its 
young men. 

2. Query: How far may love of praise be mixed in 
religious experience? 

a. It corrupts where it is the motive; 

b. Or where it dwarfs or overgrows the love of 
right things for their own sake: 

c. But where it is only an auxiliary, and is kept 
in subordination, it is not wrong. Cases of con- 
science arise chiefly because men find that love of 
praise entered into the problem of right and 
wrong. 

3. The duty of parents and educators towards the love 
of praise: 



J78 SERMON BRIEFS 

a. To divide, its sway by developing other 
feelings ; 

b. To elevate it by unfolding to the child the 
higher kinds of praise. How little does the child 
know of such! 

4. American society intensely stimulative to this 
feeling. 

a. The equality of men, and attempt to es- 
tablish a superiority with the highest. 

b. The political reference of questions to the 
people acts, in fact, to make men seek popular 
favor — praise. This to be guarded against. 



xm 

SORDIDNESS REBUKING LOVE 



But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, 
To what purpose is this waste? — Matt. 26 : 8. 

An outcry of wounded feeling. What was it? Let 
us go back and trace the circumstances. 

1. Only two or three days before the passion of Jesus. 
Bethany. House of Simon the leper, whom he had 
healed. Present, Lazarus, Simon, the sisters of Lazarus, 
some of the disciples, and others, probably, not named. 

2. Though on the eve of suffering, Jesus yielded to 
social enjoyment. There was nothing of the recluse 
or ascetic in the Saviour. He enjoyed happy social 
circles. Evidently he made himself attractive, as he 
was surrounded by many. His disciples were present 
on this occasion, as we learn from John. 

3. A contrast worthy of notice is here set forth. 
Matthew speaks only of " a woman," not giving even 
a name; but John says it was Mary, sister of Lazarus, 
etc. John does not otherwise speak of Mary here, and 
Matthew does not refer to Martha; but taking them 
together the facts are: 

That " they made him a supper there, and Martha 
served." (See John.) She was intensely practical, 
filled his glass if empty, served meat, watched to replace 
his bread; in short, her affection, real, zealous, seemed 

179 



\ 80 SERMON BRIEFS 

to bestow itself on Christ's bodily wants. If he had 
been sick, if there had been real work, etc. Martha was 
a model of the practical housekeeper, alive to every 
physical propriety or want. 

4. It was probably at about the close of supper that 
this striking scene took place. Mar} 7 seems to have had 
little interest in the supper scene, but to have been 
attracted to Christ by his higher moral nature. 

a. She was an enthusiast, so filled with her own 
feelings as to forget time, place, and company. 

b. She came, without a word, or warning, behind 
Christ as he lay on the table-couch, poured the 
most precious ointment on his head, then upon his 
feet, and then — strangely, but with exquisite 
feeling — wiped his feet with her hair. 

Notice her reserve and delicacy in not mingling her 
hair with the Saviour's by wiping his head, and the 
humility in wiping his feet — least honorable to touch 
which, in the Orient; slaves' work, with that which 
is a woman's glory, her hair! But why was it needful 
at all? It was not to cleanse. I choose to believe it 
was that she might be, in a manner so delicate, united to 
him, bearing about upon her locks the same perfume 
which, rising from the Lord, rilled the whole house. 

Notice the lavishness. A pound. Its costliness was 
such as to amaze all the company at the act. There 
was no calculation. It was an attempt to satisfy, not 
any outward necessities, but her own heart's devotion. 
Contrast sense and enthusiasm — economical judgment 
and love's excess. 

Notice the two sisters' gifts : the one honoring Christ's 
lower wants ; the other honoring his higher nature — 
a tribute to his divinity. 

5. The effect produced on the company. 



SORDIDNESS REBUKING LOVE \ 81 

On all the disciples. 

On Judas. His point of view, economy — wise 

adaptation. 

6. But its effect on Christ: 

He gave it a beautiful sacredness, I suspect, 
to redeem it from sneers. It is not a flippant love- 
gift: "It is for my burial." 

Then the promise, or declaration. There is no 
other such. The delicacy of sentiment commanded 
this praise. Of all values, Christ placed this subtle 
heart-fervor, and the uncalculating and enthusiastic 
expression of it, high above even- other service. 
G^p 3 To us, now, how low a plane was that on which 
the disciples stood! " Why was this waste? " Every- 
thing was " wasted " which did not serve some bodily 
and physical want. There was no sense of a higher 
realm, of a life within, of spiritual needs, sentiments and 
affections, to be ministered unto. 

Now let us see whether men do not fall into the same 
mistakes in our own time. 

I. Each one, in making provision for himself, serves 
bodily wants with lavish generosity; but spiritual needs 

and sentiments with economy. Why this waste? 

II. How many cry out, in their own families, when 
wives and daughters would enter on some larger sphere 
of benevolence, " Why not stay at home, and take care 
of your household? " etc. Why this waste? Ah! is 
not enriching the nobler elements of life of more value 
than serving its lower? 

III. Criticism of spending so much time in religious 
services — meetings, hymns, etc. The culture and 



*82 SERMON BRIEFS 

manifestation of religious feeling, joyous excitement. 
Why this waste? 

IV. In laboring for the poor. Why carry Bibles? 
Why pray and sing? Why not take bread and meat? 
It is indeed a great mistake not to take nourishment 
for physical wants to those who lack, but greater yet to 
leave out the appeal to finer and higher sentiments. 

V. Money raised for missions objected to. 

VI. Beautifying God's house — organ, etc. Why not 
build other churches? 

i. The final results of attempting to serve God 
cheaply. 

2. The glory of the divine command, Love with all 
your mind, etc., etc. 



XLm 

A WHOLE MAN 



For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many 
sleep. — I Cor. 11:30. 

Paul uses the word " weak," sometimes, to signify 
the want of worldly power in men w T ho live spiritually. 
" When I am weak, then am I strong." Sometimes it 
signifies simply a low tone of Christian feeling. It does 
here. The figure is obvious. The soul is spoken of as 
if it were the body, and both were feeble and sickly. 

1. There are multitudes of so-called Christians who 
live an exceedingly imperfect and often grossly low and 
inconsistent life, from causes that are known and felt 
to be sinful and inexcusable. And all, even the best, 
feel that they have much to confess and lament and 
amend in that regard. But it would not be right to 
suppose that there are no other reasons for feebleness in 
Christian life. 

Illn. A large part of bodily sickness, doubtless, may 
be traced to wrong courses. But are none sick except 
through gluttony, intemperance and inordinate lusts? 
So feeble health in the soul may arise from obscure 
causes. 

2. Indeed, it may be said that multitudes of persons 
are seeking to live a Christian life who have in it little 
peace, or joy, or hope, and who are " weak and sickly " 

183 



\U SERMON BRIEFS 

in it, though they really put forth more exertions toward 
right living than others who excel in living rightly. 

Illn. It is certainly true that people in sound health 
do not take half so much pains to be healthy as invalids 
do, who yet are always feeble. 

Illn. In commercial life some struggle and labor a 
hundred times harder to be barely supported than others 
do to amass wealth. 

Not that in any of these cases there is an element of 
chance or luck. Not that the law does not stand firm, 
of proportion between wise industry and its results. But 
because 'men's constitutions of body and mind, their 
education, their circumstances, determine their power 
of judging and acting wisely in the use of means to ends. 

Besides those professors of religion who care but little 
for piety, and those who habitually and keenly act from 
selfish motives, and those who make religion an insur- 
ance against danger rather than a motive to godliness, 
there are great numbers who are sincere, willing, earnest, 
but yet feeble. 

I propose to consider some classes of cases, — all of 
which may be simplified to two genera: a misconception 
of ends to be sought, and a misapplication of means to 
the end. 

I. Misconception of sins. 

i. There are certain views of God and government in 

which many are educated, out of which there never can 
be developed either harmony, beauty, or health. 

a. All views that make God selfish, arbitrary, 
capricious, unsympathetic. 

b. High Calvinism brings men back under the 
law of fear and bondage, and carries them away 
from the summer which Christ brought into the 



A WHOLE MAN J85 

world. A merciful and helpful God is the indis- 
pensable condition of growth in Christian life. 
2. The attempt to exalt a certain class of feelings, to 
the neglect of all others, into exclusive predominence, 
and to educe from them continuous experience — this 
is a mistake of noble and aspiring natures. 

a. It is desired to have peace, joy, rapture, all 
the time; but this is subtle selfishness. 

b. It is putting contempt upon parts of the mind 
that God deemed necessary. 

c. It is laying out not only a life of difficult con- 
ditions, but one oppugnant to inevitable conditions 
of human life, and of the nature of the mind itself. 
It is wasting effort upon a false ideal. 

How it results practically: It runs the idealistic into 
fanaticism. It generates in others despair and stupor. 
In some it reacts into unbelief. In cold and proud 
natures, not subject to passion, it produces a hard sur- 
face without, and intense pietetic selfishness within 
wrapped up in one's inner life. 

II. Misapplication of means. 

i . The attempt to live a religious life upon the basis of 
a suppression of the natural faculties. 

a. The life-forces are wasted in attempting to 
destroy self-esteem, love of approbation, and the 
appetites and passions. In this life these are in- 
dispensable and lawful. They are to be guided by 
and subject to reason and moral sense, and then 
their action is not to be disallowed. 
Illn. This attempt to suppress, acts as to suppress 
swift-running waters. They will move, and if no 
channel is provided will mine for one. The stream may 
secrete its outlet, but flow it will. Why not love ap- 



iS6 SERMON BRIEFS 

plause ? But take care of what kind ! Of things noble ! 
See how this is provided for in Scripture : Phil. 4:8: 
" Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, honest, 
just, pure, lovely, well spoken of — think on these 
things," etc. 

Hence this mistaken idea of suppression introduces 
confusion and self-deception, discouragement and cessa- 
tion of effort; for, after years of vain trial, men cease to 
try. 

2. An analogous cause of weakness is the attempt to 
dissect the life, and live it in two unrelated spheres — or 
even antagonistic ones. 

a. The impression that religion is feeling, devo- 
tion, prayer and praise, meditation, rapture, and 
that for this, as for music, there must be special 
conditions and silences. 

Illn. Farm, and flower-garden. 

b. But what then, is the meaning of " Whether 
ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the 
glory of God"? 

Illn. Look at varied elements of an army, — baggage- 
wagons, ambulances, parks of artillery, infantry, horse, 
officers and privates, scouts, skirmishers, heavy soldiers, 
etc., but all to cooperate towards one given end. 

Q^p" 3 The domestic life and its connections with 
secular affairs furnishes a just analogy to the spiritual 
life and its connections with the world-life. It inspires 
business with noble powers. Men issue from it pre- 
pared, return to it for rest, and find in it the very noblest 
motives of business activity. Do not think that all or 
most men are sordid, who act along commercial ways. 
Some are moved by love of enterprise; some by love of 
wife and children; some by tender care of parents and 
younger brothers and sisters, — they pluck from their 



A WHOLE MAN J87 

own breasts feathers to make soft nests for those they 
love. 

Away, then, with the idea that men must live two 
lives, which do not agree — the secular and the spiritual! 
A higher view unites the two, each strengthening the 
other. All the powers, both of body and of spirit, must 
work together for good, — the God-given means to the 
God-inspired aim of manly integrity — wholeness — health. 
No " weak and sickly among you " ! 



XLIV 
MODERN APOSTASY 



Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; 
{for he is faithful that promised;) and let us consider one another 
to provoke unto love and to good works: not forsaking the assembling 
of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one 
another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. 
For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of 
the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain 
fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall 
devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without 
mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punish- 
ment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden 
under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the cove- 
nant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done 
despite unto the Spirit of grace. — Heb. 10: 23-29. 

This passage strikes fear into thousands of tender 
consciences. Let me begin by saying that it is leveled 
not against any sinning after we have entered the Lord's 
service — not even every willful or intentional sin ; but 
the one specific sin here set forth ; viz., Apostasy. 

He exhorts them not to forsake assembling them- 
selves. 

a. To assemble, in that day, was almost the life 
and badge of faith. 

Jewish associations on the one side; 
Heathen world on the other. 

The little disciple-band, obscure, feeble. To 
held on to them was a fidelity which was significant. 
188 



MODERN APOSTASY J89 

To abandon them was a sign of going over to one of 
the other classes. 

b. In our day, lines are not so drawn. Christianity 
is dominant. Absence from the congregation of 
worship does not mean in the eyes of others an 
abandonment of Christ; then, it was likely to be so 
interpreted. 
If, therefore, having left Judaism or paganism and 
embraced Christianity , if then — knowingly and will- 
fully — one abandoned it for Moses or the world, what 
followed ? 

There could be no other sacrifice — that is, no new 
one ; no stronger influences in the one already disclosed. 
The guilt would be that of deliberately denying 
Christ as the Saviour of the world. 

i. Joining those who derided and trod underfoot; *. e., 
despised. 

2. Counting his sufferings and death of no moral 
meaning, but " unholy "; *. e., un consecrated, common, 
ordinary. 

In fine, a deliberate and final renunciation of Christ 
by one who had felt the real influence of Christ's truth 
upon his conscience and heart, would leave the apostate 
to all the perils and dreads of the future. 

1. What is apostasy? 

i. It is the abandonment of a side vountarily taken. 

2. As applied to sects — Greek; Catholic; Protes- 
tant. 

3. As applied to Christ it is a final abandonment of 
him, and his teachings, by one who has known and felt 
them. 

a. It may be going back to heathenism or 
Judaism. 



190 SERMON BRIEFS 

b. It may be by retreat to mere philosophy. 

c. It may be by setting up a new religious sys- 
tem — a something, claimed to be better and truer 
than Christianity. 

d. It may be through relapse into worldliness — 
moral insensibility. 

Illn. Like Jordan running into the Dead Sea. 
But in all, the essence is the same — willful extinction 
in the soul of faith in Christ. 

II. Why it is fatal. 

i. It presupposes that one has seen and felt the full 
truth. For such, no stronger disclosures. 

2. It implies a moral disintegration — a violence to 
the nature, that ordinary influences cannot repair. 

3. It does not imply: inexorable divine anger; 
exhaustion of mercy; but impossibility of the victim's 
coming to the condition in which such benefits are 
applicable. 

Illn. As if a shipwrecked crew and passengers, taken 
from a raft, should cling by their rescuers for a while; 
and, after being washed, clothed, and fed, should steal 
away, and get back to the sea. The ship goes on, and 
they are left to their fate. Not that the ship and captain 
are unwilling, but that the suicide himself has put himself 
out of reach. 

III. In our day is there danger of apostasy? 

1. All forms of backsliding point toward, tend toward, 
apostasy. In this category, reckon the relinquishment 
of Christian duties, means of grace, etc. Are these 
little neglects? 

Illn. Like hoeing, like trimming of grape-vines: not 
much — yet how much depends ! 



MODERN APOSTASY W 

2. All smoothing down of religious life by worldliness, 
that utterly shuts out Christ, and makes the supreme 
end of life to be worldly good. 

Illn. Weeding constantly needed to protect valuable 
growths from being overgrown by worthless ones. 

3. All such tendencies as substitute Nature for Christ. 
[OF 3 1 do not say but that one may construct a theism 

which shall hold in it so many elements of Christ as to 
be salvable, etc. 

(t^ 3 But a theism which is built as a substitute and 
antagonist of the Saviour must lead to apostasy. 

Hence : 

1. They have reason to fear, whose former earnest 
Christian experience has all gone to ashes. 

2. Hundreds who fill towns and cities, running 
between churches, seeking 

a. Not a higher life, but new views; 
Or, 

b. Scarcely animated, even by curiosity. 

The number of those dropped on the march — the 
stragglers of Christ's army — would surprise any one. 

1. If you fear, signs of sensibility left. 

2. If heedless, unfavorable. 

3. Remedy, active Christian life. 



XLV 
BELIEF and TOLERATION 



Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this 
rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in 
his brother's way. — Rom. 14: 13. 

The question of toleration came up to the Apostles 
in two forms: 

i. Whether any but Jews should be tolerated in 
believing in Christ. " Shall outsiders be encouraged 
to believe as we do? " 

2. " Shall Christians be tolerated who differ from us 
in point of belief? " 

tW We can hardly understand the first. But we 
may find an analogy to it in inheritance of property. 
To the Jew, religious truth was a possession, a prop- 
erty, a national secret. 

Bin. Long held monopoly in trade ; various processes 
in mechanical arts, chemistry, etc. 

Observe the result in the second case, under Paul's 
instructions. All the discrepancies, variations, etc., 
which arose, or doctrinal and ethical cases, were 
patiently to be borne with, if not positively immoral; 
and in heathen converts even incest and drunkenness 
were to be borne with until they could be better 
taught. 

Observe the ground: 

192 



BELIEF and TOLERATION 193 

i. Variations of belief are not to be considered 
matters for discredit where the parties give evidence 
in life and disposition of true godliness (Acts u: 17). 

2. This view, however, struck deeper. In the con- 
text the Apostle recognized the right of men to form and 
adopt religious opinions, subject only to God's judg- 
ment (vs. 4, etc.: " Who art thou that judgest another 
man's servant," etc. ; vs. 12, 13 : " Every one of us shall 
give account of himself to God," etc.). 

Character-making is the object of the Christian religion, 
not system-making. We are to labor for things which 
promote godly fellowship — community in things 
wherein we agree, rather than persistence in things 
wherein we disagree. 

I. What is toleration? 

1. Not charity to those who agree with you. 

2. Not simply forbearance or indifference toward 
those who disagree. 

3. It is accepting men for the Christ that is in their 
life and disposition, without scrutinizing the beliefs 
which the}?- hold. 

In other words, a good man is taken as a good belief 
(see Acts 10:34, 35). 

II. The grounds of toleration. 

1. Not a compliment — a favor, which in your kindness 
you bestow. Not a sign of your goodness and piety, 
nor of pity and mercy. 

2. It is simply a duty — a solemn obligation — derived 
from the right of men to use their own conscience and 
reason in matters between themselves and God. " To 
their own Master," etc. 



J94 SERMON BRIEFS 

3. It is to be regarded, then, as a Christian attain- 
ment, like any other grace — requiring humility, self- 
denial of pride, lively sense of others' rights, faith that 
God will guide men into saving faith, if need be, by 
very poor paths. 

OBJECTIONS 

Obj. 1. Does not toleration, so explained, invalidate 
the importance of right belief? Does it not in effect 
mean that it matters not what a man believes ? 

a. If a man has a distinct belief, it will undoubt- 
edly work for good or ill, according as it is true or 
false. 

b. Men, in fact, however, hold to many opinions 
that produce little effect on life. This is true of 

Good creeds; 
Bad creeds. 

c. A man's belief is only one of many elements 
that shape his disposition, — birth, education, 
family influence, affections, imagination, church 
associations, etc. 

Obj. 2. But, if we tolerate error, do we not endorse it? 

a. You do not tolerate the belief, but the man. 

b. You bear witness, simply, that true godliness 
is more important than the instruments used to 
produce it. 

c. In short, your testimony is this: that every 
man has a duty to God, and that you have no right 
to meddle with it. 

III. Toleration is not possible to men who care 
nothing for truth — who think all doctrines alike — 
who believe in nothing. That is, men without convic- 
tions cannot in any just sense be said to be tolerant. 



BELIEF and TOLERATION 195 

But when a man does believe, values it, and then, by 
his own sense of the sacredness of it, judges how sacred 
also to his brother is his belief, he bears a testimony 
which powerfully enforces the obligations of belief. 

True toleration tends to honor truth and firm con- 
victions ! 



XLVI 
ABIDING in CHRIST 



Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of 
itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide 
in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, 
and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me 
ye can do nothing. — John 15:4, 5. 

There is a desire in noble Christian natures for far 
more than final reward of well being, viz., " salvation " 
and " happiness." Men desire to be holy. They desire 
to be like Christ, and to have his presence made real 
and conscious. My purpose this morning is to show 
how men may have the consciousness of Christ's presence 
with them. 

I. The end sought. 

1. The conscious presence of Christ, not in the ad- 
ministration and unfolding of nature (though this is 
auxiliary), but as a personal presence, answering to the 
love-relation between friends and companions — to 
such as the disciples had, and Paul had. 

2. The object is not to have this every hour and 
moment, which would be to transform the very nature 
of the faculties, which would not be in analogy with 
the most intimate experiences; which would be incon- 
sistent with the duties of our being and station: and 
yet many have this impossible aim. 

196 



ABIDING in CHRIST 197 

The thing is to have an ever-accessible Saviour, who 
may be found whenever sought. To be able to run in 
and out, as a child in the father's house. 

II. Whether this state may be reached by all? Whether 
it is a gift conferred by Divine power — a higher order 
of nobility, or whether a certain course of action will 
help us to it; i. e., is it a subject of education? 

i. The common direction, ''Read and pray, and 
wait for the sovereign influence of God's spirit," mis- 
leads. The motive is to keep down presumption ; but 
it leads to the impression that we have no work to do — ■ 
no duty. 

2. It is true that God acts graciously, efficiently, 
gloriously , in such a sense that but for that action we could 
not do anything; yet it is made our duty to seek this 
gift by certain efforts and education on our own part. 

III. Some elements of the methods to be followed. 

i. Removal of obstacles. The repression of evil 
feelings. The rising out from feelings selfish, passional, 
and animal. 

iCgr" Could you persuade a refined and gentle nature 
to visit you, companionably, if your room were full of 
base men, drinking, gluttonizing, carousing? 

So in the soul are animal passions in excess. In their 
company it is vain to beseech; and yet Christ willingly 
comes even to God's enemies. 

2. Positive auxiliaries. The indwelling of those 
feelings which are in sympathy with Christ's. 

Illn. Wit begets understanding of wit. We under- 
stand men by something in ourselves like them. Not 
necessary that there should be likeness in character and 
fullness, but in the quality of feeling. Dramatist, etc. 



*9S SERMON BRIEFS 

(dp" 3 Common phrase of daily life: " He does not 
understand me," etc., etc., or vice versa. 
Mention, among these Christlike feelings: 

a. A general upward and spiritual tendency, as 
distinguished from worldliness. Cannot wear reli- 
gion as beads, or an amulet. It is being, or 
nothing. 

b. Genial and naming benevolence. 

c. Activity and vitality. 

d. Sympathy with suffering. Helpfulness of 
nurse. Readiness to mediate in distress, etc. 

3. Dynamics; or, the relation of intensity of feeling — 
the power of exaltation. 

" Then shall ye seek me, and ye shall find me, when 
ye seek for me with all your heart." " Thou shalt love 
with all thy heart, and soul, and mind and strength." It 
is that which it requires the whole force of one's nature 
to master. 

Bin. Even an ordinary man, who unfolds a business 
plan, requires from his co-workers their full attention, 
vitality, etc. How much more, whole soul demanded 
in pursuit of this, etc. 

4. Now we may better understand the habit of daily 
finding Christ in devotion. 

a. The office of prayer and meditation. It is 
coming into avowed presence of God. 

b. The habit of recourse in all affairs of life. Not 
reserving this as a special exercise of piety — rare, 
occasional, but hourly habit of counseling, com- 
muning, seeking, finding, etc., etc., i. e., living with 
the invisible Saviour as you would with a visible 
and present one; or as you do at home with your 
parents. 



ABIDING in CHRIST t99 

IV. The Benefits. 

i. The ease of self-government by presence of Christ, 
enhancing the self-will power; 

2. The courage and strength given in trouble, danger, 
sorrow ; 

3. The wonderful peace, joy, and soul-rest; 

4. The presage, earnest, and token of coming blessed- 
ness. 



XLvn 

TRUE GLORYING 



Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, 
neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man 
glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he 
understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise 
lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in 
these things I delight, saith the Lord. — Jer. 9: 23,24. 

I. The provision made in the human soul for glorying. 
To glory is the elation of pride or self-esteem. It is 

a sense of personal superiority — the consciousness of 
being excellent. It is a joy springing from some high 
conception of one's being. 

a. It is congenital. 

b. It can be educated, but not eradicated. 

c. If rightly directed it is noble and stimulating. 
Some err from over-estimation and ambition: 
more, from the want of enough. 

II. There are three grand directions in which this 
spirit is accustomed to disclose itself. 

1. Pride of intellect — philosopher. 

2. Pride of prowess — warrior. 

3. Pride of possessions — the wealthy. 
(1.) Pride of intellect, or knowledge. 

a. It is only relatively to our fellow-men that 
we are superior. Our absolute knowledge is small. 
200 



TRUE GLORYING 20* 

It is full of mistakes and errors. In no one depart- 
ment can a man suppose himself to be well informed. 
A great deal of dross with his gold. 

Consider the fields: of languages, of civil law, of 
general history, of physiology, of natural history, 
of sociology, of physical science. If choose but 
one, and that the last, — astronomy, geology, min- 
eralogy, chemistry, botany, etc. 

If select botany, — Dr. Lindley. It is now 
agreed that human life is not long enough to make 
a man an authority in all the departments of botany. 
-One must select still further, — as grasses, or mosses, 
or algae, etc. 

Thus, but a mere thread can be held of the mighty 
garment ! 

b. Consider what remains of the wisdom of the 
men in all ages most renowned. A mere handful; 
a dozen Greeks; half as many Hebrews; one or 
two from other civilized nations. 

In modern times, how many from mediaeval? 
How many philosophers, whose philosophy is of 
any worth except to construct a history of vaga- 
ries? 

The schools, the admiring pupils, the vain-glo- 
rious teacher. He dies. His theories are over- 
thrown. His books retreat to libraries as curiosities. 
Plowed under! 

This is not an argument against knowledge, but 
a plea for humility in it. 
(2.) Pride of prowess. Mighty man glories in his 
might. This includes the men of controlling influence. 

a. The men of violence, warriors, — Alexander, 
Caesar, Hannibal, — very unfruitful as a class, not 
constructors. 



202 SERMON BRIEFS 

b. The men of schemes and administration — 
Cavour, Bismarck, Napoleon, Talleyrand, Metter- 
nich, Richelieu, Wolsey. 

£y c. The want of the moral element in all made 
their influence transient — their life a castle-build- 
ing in the air. 
(3.) Pride of possessions. The rich man glories in his 
riches. 

a. Riches may afford a limited source of pride — 
not in their power, but in the evidence which they 
afford that you have noble executive qualities. 

b. The folly of vanity — of having the name of 
riches. 

They do not ennoble the heart. They ward ofl 
some evils, but the worst evils they are powerless 
to prevent. 

III. Now consider the true glorying — the souPs 
relation to God. 

1. Note this view of God given in our text. 

2. Strive for and glory in the same moral traits in 
ourselves — elements of true value. 

a. A man who sets his heart on moral qualities 
has that which is indestructible. 

b. This connects men with all God's work in 
human life and society. Man becomes great by 
his identification with great things. 

c. It brings him into sympathy with the Infinite, 
the Eternal, the true source of dignity and grandeur. 



XLVffl 
UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE 



Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, 
saying, Certainly this was a righteous man. — Luke 23:47. 

1. It may be supposed the portents and natural 
phenomena, darkness, etc., moved the centurion who 
was guarding the crucifixion to superstitious reverence 
for the man around whom were such sublime conclu- 
sions. Doubtless they produced some effect — prepared 
his mind. 

2. But it is not rational to omit from this state of 
mind other causes: 

a. He was a judge of bravery. 

b. He was used to every form of death, and ob- 
served how men bore themselves. 

c. He heard the words of Jesus upon the cross, 
and saw his end. 

In short, he recognized in the words, bearing, suffering, 
and death of Christ, the evidences of nobility. 

This history is full of interest in every way; but 
there is one point of view which may escape, and is yet 
important. It was the involuntary influence of the 
Saviour which reached this man's heart. 

1. It is not probable that the direct teachings and 
commands of Christ would have been fruitful upon him. 
When the Saviour sought the wise men, how few! 

203 



204 SERMON BRIEFS 

2. But now he was not a teacher by direct speech. 
Only his example was here. His unconscious nobility — 
unpretending dignity. Not when he astonished men 
by his doctrine was he so powerful as now; not when 
he wrought miracles; not when the sea was hushed; 
not when the dead came back to life; not when the 
loaf sprouted like a seed and grew a hundredfold. 

This is the sublimest instance of unconscious influence, 
and as compared with his life-success stands in singular 
contrast to his special and intentional influence. 

1. What is the source and method of an involuntary 
power? (We speak only of human beings.) 

a. The fullness and force of native organization 
of personal faculty. 

b. The facility which comes by training. 

The law seems to be that we work from volition 
toward the spontaneous. 

i. Mind, as employed in the use of the body. Walk- 
ing; athletics; manners, etc. 

2. Mind, as employed in mastering science and gen- 
eral learning. 

3. Mind, developed in the affections, generous dispo- 
sitions, etc. — from dole to generosity. 

4. Mind, developing moral sentiments. 

5. The state in which we are obliged to act on pur- 
pose is lowest. The state in which we act with impetus 
and spontaneity is highest. 

6. The reason is plain why men are to give them- 
selves wholly to religion, press forward, and be filled 
with it. 

7. When men are thoroughly trained in either good 
or evil, they are more useful or more mischievous than 
they know. 



UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE 205 

Consider how by use men are unconsciously powerful 
in evil. 

i. Men are unconscious of their levity, their evil con- 
versation, its extent, pregnancy, and mischievousness. 

2. Men grow into habits of evasion, concealment and 
disguised statements, along the whole development of 
deceit. 

3. Men give way to irritableness, to moroseness, 
fault-finding, impatience. 

4. Profanity grows to be an unconscious habit. 

5. Men thus are far more proficient in folly or evil 
than they imagine. Their accountability will be 
greater. Bad men are apt to deem themselves better 
than they are; but they are worse. 

On the other hand: 

1. Men who are heartily in earnest for good are doing 
far more for the cause of God than appears in their 
intentional labors. Often it is not what you do, but 
what you are that measures power. 

The ostentatious. 

The silent and modest. 

tW^ Thus, vacations, recreations, hours of leisure, are 
not thrown away. Summer time is not waste time. 

Encouragement to those who find beginnings of relig- 
ious life operose and difficult. Reformation has its 
worst time at first. 

The mistake of those who deem whole of life as bur- 
densome, in religion, as the first steps sometimes are. 

Growth in grace, as in any other line of development, 
brings facility and power of spontaneity. Out of this 
arises the strength of being, and the unconscious radia- 
tion of influence from character. 



XLIX 
EXALTATION BOUND to SERVICE 



And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his 
brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, and 
was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, 
and his raiment was white as the light. . . . And Jesus came and 
touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid. — Matt. 17: 1, 7. 

1. The three noted spirits of the band — Peter, 
James, John. 

2. Mountain — apart. Mountain-top, silence and 
exhilaration most marked. Eminent fitness of place. 

3. What occurred; and effect. 

a. Exaltation; and at this point the experience 
of our text. 

5. Afterwards, Cloud and Voice produced, and 
fear. 

4. Let us enter a little more into Peter's feeling. 

a. The wonder and exhilaration, such that for 
pleasure's sake would fix and maintain the condi- 
tions. 

b. The silence of all earthly feeling and the unob- 
structed play of moral feeling. No doubts, but 
radiant certainties, and that calm rapture which 
the soul feels when it stands face to face with 
infinite and eternal things. 

c. For a worthy joy, then; and as a means of 
purity, perfectness, Peter would stay, 

206 



EXALTATION BOUND to SERVICE 207 

5. The exposure of his mistake. 

a. That such moments of ecstasy cannot be pro- 
tracted. They are possible only as flashes. If Peter 
had stayed, the vision and ecstasy would have flown. 

b. He would have gained in holiness, not by 
excluding the world, but by overcoming it. It is 
action that cleanses, not hiding. 

c. Duty to others did not enter Peter's mind. 
At the foot of the mountain, even then, de- 
moniac possession; an emblem of the whole world. 

His Lord was to go to Gethsemane — Calvary. 
The disciples were to go through the suffering 
of the Master's death, their own persecution, and 
labors in all the world. 
tW How natural this wish to Peter! How mean it 
would seem to us now as a substitute of that real life 
which he did live! 

d^ 3 How glorious do these men now appear in suffer- 
ing and hardihood! Their sorrows heaped up are like 
clouds with the sun lighting them gorgeously! 
This scene is full of instruction to us. 

a. Men are seeking the highest ecstasy of joy 
in each faculty, and longing to make the experience 
permanent. 

b. But the mind could not endure such tension. 
Such experience would become utterly selfish, in 
such a world, with such natures, and such duties. 

(ty Toil, care, suffering, too, are ruggedly wholesome. 
All qualities have their hour of elevation and bright- 
ness : but no effort can prolong ; and no one should try. 

I. Hope has its mountain -top radiant scenes. May 
not prolong. Hope has other work, in other fields, than 
this prophetic rapture of joy. Go down to cheer men! 



208 SERMON BRIEFS 

II. Knowledge has its hour of transfiguration. 
There is a joy of discovery, a triumph in the open- 
ing of truth, a pure and exquisite sense of the 
divinity of truth, which at times lifts the thinker to 
the very heights. Alas! the opening heavens shut 
again. Then come patient investigation, judicial im- 
partiality, resolution, and labor. The duties of life 
lie in a dusty road where men march; not on the 
mountain-top. 

III. The imagination. How divine a gift is this 
creative faculty, that, over against stern, literal, and 
hard reality, can transport the soul, with brighter colors, 
with forms and pictures, changing for the moment dull 
fact to glowing transfiguration! 

An easy flight from trouble. 

A sense of something in life besides our poor share. 

These single hours are magnificent. Not the starry 
heavens are brighter than is the cope of imagination. 
It may not glow for mere self-indulgence. It is the 
light for dark paths; the cheer of the unfriended; the 
grace of life thrown on rudeness. It must go down to 
its work. 

IV. Wit and hilarity. — But the sufferer, the weary, 
the dull, need you. 

V. Love, and its noble rapture. But love is the uni- 
versal servant, and must be about its work. 

VI. Praise. The glory of full praise, for life and 
achievement. 

Illn. But praise cannot be like the sun; it must be 
as tapers, to light myriad cottages, hearth-fires, etc. 



EXALTATION BOUND to SERVICE 209 

From prayer men must go back to work; from 
praise to being praiseworthy. 

VII. Religious raptures. Prayer; Faith; Divine Love. 
Same rule of service applicable to all; and the higher 
the joy, the lower lie its duties. 



Ill 

THE GREAT COMMANDER 



L 
A VIEW of GOD 



Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like- 
minded one toward another according to Christ Jesus. — Rom. 15:5. 

This is a title applied to God. The collocation of the 
two terms is not accidental. In the sequel you will 
see that patience and consolation are the two elements 
that of all others must stand together. 

This is not a solitary expression. In John's gospel 
Christ speaks of the Holy Spirit, by express title, as 
the Comforter. That particular function of divine life 
is celebrated in the Old Testament even more than in 
the New. The Psalms and prophets abound in testi- 
monies to God's comforts and consolations. The un- 
settled and wasteful times in which the lot of those holy 
men was cast made it necessary and natural that they 
should turn to that side of the Divine Soul. 

Consider this as a title. Men are wont to think of 
God as power. He creates, he controls, he governs, he 
punishes, he destroys. All nature is full of elements of 
power that furnish symbols, and the Scriptures use 
them. God is a strong wind, a lightning, an earthquake, 
a storm. He is a lion, an eagle. Or, in the composite 
figures of the prophets, the ox, the lion, the warrior- 
man, are blended. But, just as you find the utmost 
variety of contrast in nature, doves and sparrows 

213 



2J4 SERMON BRIEFS 

nestling just below the winged circle that the eagle cuts ; 
flowers and mosses nestling and blooming by the side 
of the ruined tree, lightning-struck; lichens and tender 
plants hastening to cover with beauty rocks and soil 
which earthquakes have piled up; so is it in the pro- 
gressive descriptions of God. For no one thing in life 
or nature can frame a title; nor can all nature. But 
the whole of Nature, striving together, affirms its great- 
ness, power, brightness, scope, duration; its peace, 
gentleness, growth, renewal; its flowers, fruits, clusters 
and garners; its love, joy, peace, domesticity, as well 
as its laws, magistrates, and crowns, — that out of all 
of them we might gather some faint sense of the uni- 
versality, the transcendent variety, and potency of God. 

And yet, when in our happiest mood we have royally 
conceived of the noblest ideal of God, gathering from 
every side the choicest treasures, — love from the mother, 
authority from the father, pity from philanthropists, 
grandeur from empire, scope and continuity from nature, 
— yet God is more than all, better, sweeter, more en- 
trancing. It is only when we describe the Divine heart 
that exaggeration becomes impossible. The reality dwarfs 
the conception of priest, prophet, apostle, and saint. 

And the Holy Scripture, at the end, as it were, insti- 
tutes a heavenly tableau to illustrate how little all titles 
and conceptions have disclosed God's nature in heaven; 
for there, in the island vision of John, we find this: 
(Rev. 5: 9-end). 

I. An inspection of nature and of history at first would 
seem to reveal nothing of this divine nature. 

1. The constitution of the world is one of conflicts 
and antagonisms — both in the inorganic and in the 
animal and vegetable kingdoms. 



A VIEW of GOD 2*5 

2. The nature of man is organized liability to suffering. 
It inheres in his: 

a. Nature of faculties, double-acting. 

b. Relation to laws that were not revealed to 
him, but yet are potent for good and evil. 

c. Relations to his fellow-men; to parental 
example and teaching; to average morality and 
national customs; to his age, and its degree of 
enlightenment. 

3. The unfolding history of the race shows that the 
whole creation groans and travails in pain. 

d^ 3 Must not judge the race by the personal expe- 
rience of one housed and fashioned in the cradle of 
piety and wealth. This judgment of men uncharitably 
by the law of your own prosperity, is making God's 
mercy to you a law of condemnation to others. 

In view of this some suggestions may be made. 

1. At present, there is no explanation of God that 
can clear up to us all difficulties. They imply a circle 
of influence and design which we have not yet explored, 
but if we can gain hints, and solve some master-diffi- 
culties, then we may hope for the rest. 

2. What if, instead of a perfect race intruded on this 
world, the Divine history has really been the development 
of a race from the animal line, up through all gradation 
to the present; and the Divine design a still further 
enlargement, sloughing more and more the animal, and 
rising more and more toward the spiritual and moral? 

If suffering has, in its largest exposition, been a 
discoverer of law, an interpretation of hidden truth; 
if the waste of one generation has been the preparation 
of soil for a better growth in the next; if the race is 
unfolding, and but just begun; if there lies before us 
a future filled with beings as much beyond us as we are 



2*6 SERMON BRIEFS 

beyond our heathen ancestors, — is there no alternative 
as to the value of suffering f 

Suppose that in our Revolutionary struggle, one had 
taken gauge of the sufferings of barefooted soldiers, etc., 
to measure the wisdom of resistance? The Tory cried 
out, " Peace, peace," for to him degradation was no 
trouble; but think of Adams, Franklin, Washington, 
Jefferson, Madison, Hancock, Randolph, Gouverneur 
Morris, Hamilton, and such-like noble names that arose 
out of that troubled time; and we } do we count the 
suffering now as un worth the result? 

Bin. The clearing up of a storm repays all black 
drops, and horrid thunders, and obscurations. 

3. If we can establish in the nature of society and in 
Providence the fact that suffering has a use, and is not 
blind and purposeless — that it is only a way of working 
final happiness, — the question is, if not solved, yet 
relieved. Is Paul's formula for the individual true in 
a larger way for the race? " Now no suffering is for 
the present joyous, but grievous; but afterward it 
worketh the peaceable fruit of righteousness/' 

The individual proves that in that afterwards years 
are contained; as applied to the world, ages move within 
it! 

4. But out of this very mixture and seething sorrow 
of the world there has been a steady movement toward 
comfort. There has been a current, at first small and 
hidden, coming to the surface here, and sinking again 
yonder, yet holding its way, and right toward civiliza- 
tion, morality, and love. 

Illn. The Gulf Stream, beginning in tropical waters, 
moves a mighty current of warmth. Angry seas invade 
its sides, but cannot deflect and destroy. Storms 
hardly ever abandon its atmosphere; yet right up 



A VIEW of GOD 2*7 

through the Atlantic to northern seas, and right across 
them, it bears its warmth, and moving, upon the shores 
of Great Britain and the Continent, carries mildness to 
winter and fruitfulness to what without it would be a 
frozen zone. 

So is the stream in history, guided by an invisible 
Hand, moving through ages, and augmenting the world's 
happiness. This is that movement which dim prophecy 
indistinctly saw. " There is a river, the streams whereof 
shall make glad the city of our God." 

But read the psalm — the forty-sixth. 

CONCLUSION 

1. i. The superficial aspect is care, sorrow, wretched- 
ness. 

2. The interior truth is a growing and invisible ten- 
dency toward human power, purity, and happiness. 

II. Rising from a divine Providence which includes 
the whole of human history, consider the grandeur of 
this conception of God, sitting amidst universal empire, 
to console men, while needful evolutions and growths 
were going on. 

i. The subjects of consolation. 

a. The poor and ignorant, b. Those who suffer 

from others' fault, by social liability, c. Those 

whom the intolerant spirit of society casts out. 

d. Those whom the world does not know how to 

comfort, e. Those who do not know how to utter 

their own griefs. 

The greatness of God illustrated by this: Imagine 

all orphans ; all mothers ; all wives and husbands ; all 

prisoners; all captives; all strangers and helpless; all 

that suffer cold, and hunger, and shame, and remorse — 



2X8 SERMON BRIEFS 

imagine their petitions as having form, and rising up to 
God. What an army which no man can number! 
God's patience and consolation, how joined together! 
2. The nature of consolation. 

a. Compensations, final. 

b. Time has commenced to work God's comfort 
on grief. 

c. But the human heart has this office: " Rejoice 
with those who rejoice, and weep with those that 
weep." 

d. God's Spirit greatest, best; and cause of all 
others. 

It flows through all channels; and then, not 
content, rising above, and by direct influx, descends 
upon the human soul. 



LI 
FINDING GOD 



As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul 
after thee, O God. — Psalm 42 : 1. 

All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man 
knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the 
Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal 
him. — Matt. 11: 27. 

1. This was individual experience. David's strong 
affectional nature. 

2. Many persons strive for it, — vainly, — and are 
discouraged because no experience in them ever orbs 
so full as to fill this expression. 

3 . Many others are conscious of but very little knowl- 
edge, even — still less realization — of God. 

a. Some suppose it to be a supernatural revela- 
tion in each. 

b. Some perhaps doubting any God. 

c. Some, seeking to fill the void with an imper- 
sonal, pantheistic God. 

4. Even more dangerous to real nobleness of soul is 
a dull indifference — an acceptance of conventional 
statements without attention, etc. 

Some considerations, therefore, designed to enable 
each one to find his God, and to draw near to him, will 
be of benefit. 

219 



220 SERMON BRIEFS 

It is the testimony of Scripture that no view of 
God can to us be more than a fragment. 

" None by searching," etc. 

" Now abideth," etc. i Cor. 13. 

The more permanent and perfect the conception 
seems to us, the less likely to be true. 

I. The fundamental condition is a personal Being. 

a. The tendencies of modern thought are not 
new, but have more power than anciently. 

b. All our experiences in this world fit us ex- 
pressly for conceiving a person, and unfit us for any- 
thing else ; every exercise of mind implying love, obe- 
dience, homage, etc., affords strong presumption, etc. 

c. Certainly, no one can meet the requisitions 
of God's Word — love God with all heart, etc. — 
except there be definite personality. 

d. That the coming of Christ is the interpretation 
of God — not the whole, but a personal Being, 
worthy to represent — falls in with every analogy 
and every need of the human soul. 

All other conceptions tend to dreams — mysteries. 

II. But a multitude of witnesses will testify that the 
traditional and theological statements of divine character 
do not suffice. 

1. They meet a certain definable intellectual want, 
important as a basis of education, but beyond that are 
barren, powerless. It would be a melancholy task 
could we see how really unfruitful the name of God 
is among thousands — how exceedingly vague. 

2. Men find, 

a. Either that they have nothing, 

b. Or that they must depend upon their own 
thoughts and imaginations. 



FINDING GOD 221 

$W And this alarms, as if God were the fiction which 
each man creates for himself and as he pleases. 

III. But it may be said that tW any view of God 
which fills, fires, or comforts the soul is a special 
work of God in that soul; or, that every man works 
out in his own experience the idea of a God of con- 
solation and wisdom. The God that comes home to 
us is born out of our own thoughts, or, rather, into 
them. 

As this is a working idea, important to be well under- 
stood, consider that: 

i. It is impossible to understand that for which we 
have no faculty. 

2. All our ideas of justice, truth, duty, love, etc., 
and converse evils, are worked out of our own experi- 
ences of these qualities. 

3. Having gained, in the family and school of life, 
primary moral ideas, we frame out of these a conception 
of Deity, as the sum of them. 

$W But this is God of the outer court. 

4. God brought home, " Emmanuel," is the result, 
usually, of unconscious experience. 

To some he is a God of beauty — taste ; 

To some, God of power and wisdom; 

To some, God of love and consolation; 

To some, God of conscience, justice, purity, truth. 

Hence we are correct only in quality — not in quan- 
tity nor combination. 

Christ touched that: " If ye, being evil," etc., "how 
much more," etc. 

Take this figure again, and conceive the disparity 
between a babe and its mother; and yet we see that 
case! Now, from this rise to higher. 



222 SERMON BRIEFS 

IV. The next question, then, will be: How to come 
near to a God of such unimaginable transcendence? Is 
he not altogether beyond our reach? 

" With the heart man believeth unto righteousness." 
David thirsted for God because he divined his goodness 
and tender mercy : and we may not only thirst but take 
of the water of life freely, for the Son hath revealed to us 
the heart of the Father. 

"I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify unto you 
these things in the churches. I am the root and the 
offspring of David, and the bright and morning star." 

Even so, Come % Lord Jesus! 



m 

MAN'S SOUL and GOD'S SPIRIT 



Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know 
not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself 
maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 
— Rom. 8: 26, etc. 

There are other parts of Scripture that reach higher 
than the seventh and eighth of Romans in particular 
elements of religious experience. The thirteenth of 
First Corinthians is a discourse of love, unapproached 
by anything else in human thought. There are in still 
other parts of Scripture voices of awe, of worship, rising 
with greater volume and majesty. But nowhere else, 
within or without the Scriptures, is the grand conflict 
of the spiritual kingdom and the fleshly in the soul of 
man so minutely, profoundly, and gloriously set forth 
as in these two chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. 

The just man is imagined : his endeavors to live a holy 
life, first by a system of moral rules, applying to external 
life; then the disclosure of the law of God, invisible, 
spiritual and holy, whose primary sphere is in man's 
heart and soul; the horror and prostration of hope and 
courage which this disclosure makes; the discrepancy 
between the ideal and the real of conduct; the conflict 
between appetites, passions and ambitions on the one 
hand and the higher principle of purity and love on the 

223 



224 SERMON BRIEFS 

other; the wretchedness and despair of victory; the 
disclosure of Christ as divine, and as the soul's love- 
master, loving and accepting sinners, sympathizing in 
their infirmities, pardoning their sins, sustaining them 
and inspiring them for his own sake as well as for theirs, 
loving the unlovely, patient with the indocile, helping 
the weak, nursing the inferior, pouring light upon the 
ignorant, inspiring the soul to exertion, leading the 
conflict unto victory. 

Such is the story of this epic of the seventh and 
eighth of Romans, which sounds depths of experience 
more profound than in any other Scripture, and which 
traces the process of spiritual life from its embryo to its 
manhood, — not in the cold language of philosophy, 
but in the vernacular of experience. 

And then the symphonious close! Have you never 
marked the progress of thought in some of the sym- 
phonies of von Weber, and especially of Beethoven — 
the calm opening, the sweetness and hopefulness of 
youth, as if, like Paul, he had said, " I was alive once 
without the law"? Then comes the startling introduc- 
tion of some wail, the effort seemingly of all the other 
parts to cast it out, to silence it, to overpower it; the 
steady growth in power, one and another sweet strain 
dying down, and its voice of conflict rising steadily 
higher and hoarser, until the wild plaint has taken full 
possession of the strain, and sounds out as harsh and 
dreadful as a winter storm in a desolate castle. Then 
you shall notice, amid the wails and stridulous com- 
plaints, some sweet note, as if a voice of hope, sounding 
and ceasing, but coming again and again, and dwelling 
longer, still gathering volume, until after sonorous 
conflict it exorcises the demon of despair, and pours 
with full orchestra a strain of victory, which rises to a 



MAN'S SOUL and GOD'S SPIRIT 225 

grand choral triumph in which it seems as if the heavens 
and the earth were filled with gladness, and all voices 
above and below joined in the solemn cadence. 

Now, with this image in your mind, read the seventh 
of Romans, and the mixed joy and struggle of the 
eighth, until you draw near the close; and then bare 
your head, and put off the shoes from your feet, while 
the rapt apostle sounds out the grand rapture and finale. 

(Read vs. 31-39.) 

Out of this wonderful discourse we bring our text. 
It is but one bough cut from a forest of spice trees. Let 
us analyze and dwell upon its particular elements. 

I. It is taught that God's spirit is divinely active in 
the teaching and helping of sinful men. 

1. This idea, as distinguished from a remote God, 
placed high and alone, toward whom we are to struggle 
up, and who will receive only such as attain to holiness. 

But here, God's spirit is abroad on a mission of mercy. 
It comes to men. It wakes them to new life. It teaches 
them a higher aim. It stands by while they struggle. 
It helps wherever they are weak. 

G^" God makes weakness his home. (Read Isaiah 

57:i5-) 

2. The grandeur of such a view, and the divinity of 
it. The great material work of life is not the only. It 
goes grinding and thundering on; but another, nobler 
process is in action. God's soul is enwrapping the race. 
His prolific mind lets down its spirit upon the souls of 
men ; and in the silent and invisible realm there is going 
on a merciful work, which, when it shall be disclosed in 
another sphere, will eclipse by its very brightness all 
the things most glorious in the earthly kingdom of sense 
and sight. 



226 SERMON BRIEFS 

II. The recognition of our spiritual and temporal igno- 
rance. " We know not what to pray for as we ought." 

i. The utter truth of this. Our perplexity: In tem- 
poral things; in rearing children; in emergencies of 
fortune; in struggles with ourselves for what is right. 

Q^lF 3 How easily we could learn and do, if only the 
way of piety was clear! Two struggles: 

a. To perform duty when known. 

b. But, as we rise by victory, even harder to 
know what duty is: to ourselves; to others; to 
the church; to society. New cases, mixed, obscure. 

Different degrees of interpreting power in differ- 
ent persons. Sometimes amounts to anguish. 
Good men have been under a cloud here. 

c. Now, here is the relief — God's supervision 
takes in this very field; and one of the most sur- 
prising and blessed truths is developed to meet 
this want; viz., 

III. God's children are under a dispensation of in- 
spiration, or of immediate teaching from God's spirit. 

i. Exegesis. Now the best commentators agree. 

2. Distinction between inspiration for communities 
and general administration, and inspiration for an 
individual's own personal guidance. 

3. The method indicated, viz., God stimulates our 
feelings, develops our thoughts. He does not set aside 
nature, but uses it. Yet, as men can inspire you to good 
or evil, God much more! 

APPLICATION 

I. The interpretation to be given to all luminous 
hours, states of exaltation, that lift us away from a 
sense of self, and time, higher. 



MAN'S SOUL and GOD'S SPIRIT 227 

I tin. You do know certainly, in spring, if a root 
sprouts, that great thermal conditions did it. 

diir Nobody saw or heard — neither sound nor form 
— all invisible, intangible; and yet that result is un- 
mistakable evidence of heat, in air. 

So, development of distinct moral impulses shows 
God at work: 

i. In sinners; 

2. In good men. 

II. The necessity of preparation for these favoring 
conditions. 

i. Maintenance of moral susceptibility, and all modes 
by which preserved. 

Illn. How men preserve thermometers from side 
influences. 

Illn. Astronomer's care to prevent any jar or cause 
of error in sight. Shall we not guard the soul? 

2. Faith in, and habit of following, these higher 
moods. Else, like an unheeded clock, tick and strike in 
vain. 

III. Obj. Liability of deception? Yes, but only in 
common with every other element of human life. 

IV. Interpretation of, " Grieve not the Spirit." Eph. 
4 : 30. 



Lm 

DIVINE POWER of SYMPATHY 



And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is 
given unto me in heaven and in earth. — Matt. 28 : 18. 

"All power." 

1. We are not to emphasize the word given as if it 
implied delegated power. When it pleased the Son 
to appear on earth, we can imagine no other way but 
change of condition of being. He assumed a body. 
This itself implies limitation. We see both elements 
of weakness through the flesh, and intervals of power 
flashing out. 

A body is a method of developing a seminal nature. 
But that which is school to a beginner is prison to a 
Supreme Being. 

Illn. A ripe and graduated scholar shut up in a 
primary school, and using only so much of himself and 
of his stores as are wanted there, must lay aside his 
power and glory. So the Saviour. 

2. When his earthly mission is ended, and he resumes 
his original state, it is given him to take again the feel- 
ings of his nature, and the richness, variety and grandeur 
of his power. 

He had power to lay down his life; 
He had power to take it up. 

3. This power belonged to his very nature. This is 
228 



DIVINE POWER of SYMPATHY 229 

so important as to require a moment's separate consid- 
eration. 

i . We are accustomed to associate power with external 
conditions : 

a. Power of body ; of wealth; power which they 
have who administer laws, governments, social 
influence ; — all external to the human spirit. 

Illn. Engineer's power is not in him but in the 
steam. 

Illn. Miller's power is in the water, which he 
causes to exert itself for his uses. 

These are all real, but the person holding or 
directing them may be very feeble in power of 
personality. 

b. But we meet men who have no external ad- 
juncts, yet who have great personal sway : 

One by his native sense and shrewdness in facts; 

Another by power of reasoning; 

Another by effectiveness springing from a high 
moral organization. Men feel his presence. They 
perceive a higher measvire of good when he appears. 

Another by art power, in music, poetry, painting, 
etc. 

(C^ These are inherent. They do not spring 
from the use of power invested in external things, 
but from power invested in faculty. Men are 
sensible of this distinction in common life. 

We say that men having this personal power are 
happily organized ; or that they are highly endowed ; 
or that they are eminently gifted, etc. And when 
this power includes moral excellence, benevolence, 
purity, truth, self-abnegation, we call them, in 
poetic figure, noblemen, princes, heroes, etc. — 
godlike. 



230 SERMON BRIEFS 

So we see, in these cases of interior personal 
power, that men are on the road toward a concep- 
tion of God. Not as an earthly potentate holding 
all governments and machineries of influence, but 
as a Being of such intrinsic power that all is in Him, 
and is a part of his nature. It is his very being, to 
be of infinite and various power. 

Christ's power is in the intensity and vastness 
of his attributes. It is Himself. It is the relation 
of such and so much being to others. It is the 
grandeur and royalty of intrinsic nature and dis- 
position. 

2. All power is Christ's. 

a. The kinds knowm among men as derived from 
human potentates. 

b. The question whether there are not other 
grades and higher conditions, not only, but other 
kinds unknown to this state of being. 

i. Analog) 7 of opening up head-forces in the 
progress of the race. 

2. The unlikeliness that the whole of being is 
compressed into this world, which seems much more 
like a propagating ground than the full garden. 

3. Christ's power is not confined to heaven. It is 
power on earth: 

Behind laws of matter; 
Behind laws of the human mind and soul; 
Behind governments and world-currents; 
A Providence — a Guiding Grace — an educating and 
inspiring Force: 
Eph. i : 20; 
Phil. 2:9; 
Col. 2 : 10; 
1 Pet. 3 : 22. 



DIVINE POWER of SYMPATHY 23J 

APPLICATION 

I. God is not an ecclesiastic nor a professional God. 
Artist, scholar, legislator, merchant, mechanic, poet, 

musician, philosopher — every legitimate tendency in 
the human mind is toward its type and perfectness, in 
God. 

He cares for these things from an innate relish. He 
is not a Sunday God, a Church God, but every day and 
everywhere — " all power in heaven and on earth." 

II. Christ declares all this not of Jehovah but of 
himself. We must remember that his earthly career 
was just finished, he was about to ascend, and that that 
nature and manifestation which had filled the hearts 
of his friends here was to clothe itself with infinite and 
universal power. To understand what the beauty and 
glory of it is in heaven, we must revert for a moment 
to the moral character and disclosures of Christ on earth. 

Coming to his enemies: " to seek and save lost " ; "to 
the poor the Gospel is preached." His sympathy going 
out to ignorance, to penitent and desponding evil, to 
the weak and tempted, to suffering and sorrow. Utter 
using and emptying of self of all power, that others 
might be built up. 

Compare with monarchs, statesmen, the rich, scholars, 
and philosophers: — universal self -exaltation. But 
Christ, " though rich, became poor." 

It is that tendency which is translated to infinitude. 
It is to such a disposition that all power is given. 

III. There is not a sorrow, a want, a temptation, 
which has not its refuge and natural sympathizing 
center in the bosom of this Saviour. " We have not a 
high -priest who cannot be moved," etc. 



232 SERMON BRIEFS 

IV. See what we are living toward : 

i. The path into the future, as it seems to nature, is 
age, infirmity, thinning friends, losses, bitter knowledge, 
human weakness, poverty, neglect, death; 

2. But what are we living toward, who have faith in 
Jesus ! 



LIV 
CHRIST, the IDEAL 



As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye 
in him. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all 
principality and power. — Col. 2:6,10. 

The particular thought to which I invite your atten- 
tion in this passage, is that Christ is presented to men 
as the hero for admiration, inspiration, and imitation. 

I. The tendency in human nature to seek and follow 
a leader is universal. The selection may be unfortunate, 
but the impulse is noble. It implies an ideal excellence, 
aspiration for something higher and better than one 
finds in himself. It is the distinguishing mark as between 
the downward tendency and the upward tendency of 
men's natures. 

1. Without it men live merely for sense, and for 
present gratification. They are content, no matter 
how little worthy of contentment their natures may be. 
There is no principle of growth. Take away external 
props, and there is nothing to save them from degeneracy. 

2. No man proposes to himself another person for 
imitation without taking the first step of rising. It is 
the going out of self. It is a confession of insufficiency 
of self. This is a grand step. Thousands of men do not 
dream but that they are well enough off inwardly, 

233 



234 SERMON BRIEFS 

Illn. In externals they are satisfied that they might 
be better — riches, pleasures, influence; but as to their 
character they do not feel the want of anything; yet 
all is tame, sordid, selfish, vulgar. Self-content is ruin. 
" Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit," etc. 

To awaken and see in others an element that rebukes 
you is salutary. It is a rude and imperfect aiming at 
character, or at a spiritual and not a material result. 

3. Then again, men need to have great or good quali- 
ties reduced to action or example before their faces. A 
transcendent act of a heroic man is in the moral realm 
what a great discovery is in the economic and mechanical 
world. 

Illn. The first steam-engine revolutionized human 
industry, and indirectly touched civilization at the core. 
The first sewing machine reached out an influence that 
touched every household in the land. Before, the hand 
planted stitches slowly and singly , — now broadcast. 
Before, sewing was like drawing water with a bucket, — 
now it is a rain. 

So in the moral realm, a great moral act is a discovery, 
an invention, in character. Before, men did not dream 
that there was any achievement beyond the beaten 
track of experience; but let some man lift up an ex- 
ample, and all men see that there is something higher. 

$W* The great ignorant mass need to have possible 
virtue condensed into actual — the abstract made 
concrete. Hence it is that the stronger are made 
leaders through spontaneous imitation by weaker men. 
Great men are not elected chiefs by men, but by the 
higher election of God in their creation. They are 
" called of God." 

Illn. Thus men of mark show their fellows the way. 
They cut steps in the sides of the mountains which they 



CHRIST, the IDEAL 235 

climb for their own feet, and these remain for others 
to use. If a ship sail across the sea in fourteen days, 
it is good. Reduce it to twelve, and others will. The 
knowledge that a thing can be done is the force that 
will move scores to do it. 

The boy has his little hero in the crowds of 
boys. The workman has his ideal craftsman. The 
professional man has his enthusiasm. The speaker, 
the musician, the politician, all set up some shin- 
ing example before them. A man will have some 
hero. 

II. The secular models. 

i . They are often only men of mere success — the 
Girards, the As tors, the finished lawyer, the eloquent 
speaker. It is a model for a single element, and leaves 
the great part of men uninfluenced. 

2 . The higher heroes are usually the heroes of force — 
not of excellence. 

3. Even where moral excellence is recognized, it is 
usually special, and not universal; i. e., it is excellence 
belonging to a species and not a genus; and to imitate 
is to attempt to conform not to a type, but to a modifi- 
cation or variety not reproducible. 

Udp 3 Hence, the biographies of good men, capable of 
benefit, are made mischievous. 

III. The man Christ Jesus is the universal Man. 

a. He has been the hero of all ages. 

b. Of every class and condition of men, high and 
low. 

c. Of every stage of culture — the highest, the 
least developed. Of the untutored heathen and 
of the philosopher. 



236 SERMON BRIEFS 

Is Christ universal? Are all the elements which men 
need, in him? What can the orator find? What the 
artist, the statesman, the warrior, the mechanic? 

I reply, He is universal not by specific adaptation, but 
by those underlying universal qualities which govern 
all special departments. 

i. The law is that the highest intellectual and spir- 
itual develop and enrich all below them. 

Hence, " Seek ye first," etc., " Godliness is profit- 
able," etc. 

2. Therefore, aiming at character in its highest type, 
the artist, the orator, whoever aspires, finds in this moral 
largeness the very influence he needs; and he is orator 
or artist because he is more than that — because he is 
a man. Manhood first; special tendencies next. 

IV. Consider how transcendent are the elements of 
Christ. 

i. First, recall great men of the world, — rulers, 
greater statesmen, Herod, Pilate, king, emperor, rich 
men and warriors, artists and scholars. Great indeed 
they may have been among their fellows, yet now they 
have gone down, and only one Name is " above every 
name that is named." Why? 

The notable superiorities of Christ were not physical; 
not worldly-minded; not those of geniuses in art or 
eloquence : 

They stood in moral goodness, purity and nobility, 
self-possession, disinterestedness and magnanimity, labor 
for others, heroic self-sacrifice. These are immortal. 

V. Consider what an influence upon a whole life would 
be exerted by such a passionate admiration of Christ 
as men feel for human models and heroes. 



CHRIST, the IDEAL 237 

This is what " studying " the Word of God should 
mean. 

i. Precepts and tiuths; 

2. History of God's dealings with men; 

3. Wings for devotion; 

4. But, rising above all else, intimate knowledge of 
the ideal Man, the incarnate God. 

What sweeping away of customs! What dignity to 
life! 



LV 
WORTH and GROUNDS of HOPE 



For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: 
for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for ? — Rom. 8: 24. 

" For we are saved by Hope." 

Not exclusively. It is one of the factors. Its exist- 
ence implies other things which work out salvation. 
The question of man's salvation is spoken of differently 
according to the point of view taken. If we are regard- 
ing it from the Divine side, and in its relations to govern- 
ment, we are saved by the grace of God. If we consider 
the instruments which wrought out and now apply the 
influences by which our salvation is effected, we are 
saved by the love of Christ. But if we consider the 
subject from the human side, other causes will be alleged 
as securing salvation. 

If men are spoken of as saved by Christ, then that 
element in the mind which takes hold of Christ will be 
singled out, and men are said to be saved by Faith. If 
we look at the long continuance of worldly trials, stretch- 
ing sometimes across the whole breadth of life, and con- 
sider how likely men are to be weary, and to give up, 
then it is said that we are saved by Patience, or endur- 
ance to the end. But if we are considering the troubles 
and trials of the career of a Christian life, and the dis- 
couragements which they bring, we know that the 
238 



WORTH and GROUNDS of HOPE 239 

spirit which rises up and overcomes them is that which 
saves us, and that is Hope, which usually carries along 
with it Courage. 

All of these causes act alternately or together, and 
we are saved by them each and all — by Divine love ; 
by Divine grace ; by human activity ; by patience ; by 
faith, and by hope unto the end. 

Hope is an original feeling, and exists in every mind 
as a constitutional element, varying in degree, like any 
other gift, in different persons; but in all subject to 
development, regulation and discipline. In short, it is 
susceptible of education. This and all Christian feelings 
wdiatever are natural. Religion is not a creative but a 
regulative influence. 

A hopeful disposition, under mere secular and earthly 
training, carries with it cheer, happiness and courage, 
in social and temporal affairs. It may exist and act 
simply from the fullness of the feeling in any case; or 
it may call to its aid the reason, and hope may be based 
on experience, conviction, knowledge. 

It becomes Christian hopefulness when it is stimulated 
by Christian truth, when it recognizes Christ, and feels 
the force of his words, promises, and truths. 

As hope, strong, ardent, not only in prosperity but 
in darkest trouble, is a Christian's duty; as hopefulness is 
one of the evidences of piety, atid one of the great instru- 
ments of education and salvation, it will be wise in us 
to consider the ends or aims which it includes, and the 
grounds on which it stands. 

i. The ultimate and grand object of hope is the salva- 
tion of the soul, and its eternal blessedness in the heav- 
enly state. But as that is the remote and final result 
of a long course of earthly education and discipline, 
hope takes cognizance of the whole career of man, from 



240 SERMON BRIEFS 

his entrance into battle to his crowning with laurels and 
victory. It casts its light and cheer over every step, 
deed, and experience of life. It is to the soul what light 
is to the stars. It is soul-radiance, and shines on, day 
and night, over rough and smooth, behind stones or upon 
columns. It gives confidence, comfort, happiness. It 
renews strength and inspires courage even against sight 
and against ordinary reason. The soul travels by 
appointed paths as far as they will carry it; and then 
faith and hope are wings for the trackless air. 

Illn. In my yard, hens, most domestic, go where 
feet can go. So do my doves; but then, they spread 
their wings and swing in glorious circles through the 
air, up and against the wind; or, swaying, they dart 
swift as light, and flashing in it, with the wind, over 
plain and tree, rock and fence, in that pathless air which 
is all path. 

2. This seems to some a blind enthusiasm. Nay, 
hopefulness, in the degrees to which it attains in Chris- 
tian experience, seems a sort of fanaticism. Men doubt 
the wisdom of feelings that have no base laid for them 
in experience and fact. But there is a foundation for 
hopefulness laid in that which is better than mere 
human experience; viz., in God's provisions — in the 
structure of the world, society, and his own government. 

Note, then, these grounds for Hope: — 

i. That the earth is the Lord's, made on purpose to 
accomplish the very things for which Christians strive. 

In one way men are called exiles ; but in another way 
they are at home on earth. It is their Father's house. 

Illn. Child on a visit, or boarding, and when it 
comes home. 

The whole world was made and is governed for their 
sakes. 



WORTH and GROUNDS of HOPE 24* 

Illn. Every child has a sense of property in his 
father's possessions. See i Cor. 3:21: " All things 
are yours," etc. 

Now then, go out, with living faith, and say " All 
things are mine " — the sun, the seasons, the trees, the 
flowers, human life. 

Illn. I sit by my window. That sea is mine. Those 
ships are mine. All the galleries of pictures in sky and 
on land are mine. Mine are the gardens, and orchards, 
and grounds. Mine are the wilderness, the streams and 
the mountains. 

It is a great deal to gain an abiding conviction that 
the earth is the Lord's, and that you are his own. 

2. That God supervises the course of nature, the flow 
of society, and the tendencies of individual life, so as to 
lay the foundation of hope to every one who would live 
aright. 

In one important sense we do " wrestle against prin- 
cipalities and powers" (Eph. 6:12); but in a sense 
yet higher the course of empire is for us. The human 
tendencies may be adverse ; but there is a Divine decree 
that works over, under and through all things. 

3. That as soon as the soul embraces Christ it avails 
itself of a love that is personal, as the utmost love of 
man to man, and ten thousand times more fruitful. 

Now, note the consequences. The royalty of the 
love-law is this — that you are more to God than to 
yourself : 

a. This is familiar to us on a small scale — family, 
children, etc. 

b. Render it infinite, and call it Divine. Pro- 
visions of grace. 

4. That from this springs a loving special providence 
that includes every detail and specialty of daily and 



242 SERMON BRIEFS 

secular life; — a love, watch and care that never change. 
Perseverance of God; not of saints. 

5. This is corroborated by the experience of good 
men. Summon them to testimony. 

I. Mark now the contrast between resting on mutable 
moods, which depend on a thousand evanescent courses, 
and on a well-considered ground of hope in God. 

II. Contrast the disposition to see all dark, to acutely 
feel all the evil, and the disposition that searches and 
rests in the good and hopeful. 

III. Objection, that hopefulness leads to presumption ; 
disinclines to labor. Yet 

Want of it, — apathy. 
It is inspiration. 

IV. Applications. 

1. Hopefulness applied to success in Christian life. 
It is a very great undertaking. Scope, importance, and 
hindrances. To that very point God promises his own 
Son. " Shall he not with him freely give us all things ? " 

%W Consider that God sees ineffable and eternal 
glories of salvation; and shall he not be more disposed 
than we to bring his children to it? (Isa. 40: 27 to the 
end.) 

2. Christian hope in rearing a family. 

a. Temporal. With wise and right direction, 
gives incitement and efficiency. 

b. Spiritual. Apply to early conversion, and to 
holding out of children in the Christian life. Hope 
and expectation on your part will largely secure the 
result. 



LVI 

REGULATING POWER of the DIVINE 
LIFE 



Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in 
whatever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be 
abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things 
I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and 
to suffer heed. — Phil. 4 : 11, 12. 

I. Paul's natural character. This effect of exaltation 
and of reverses to be expected. 

II. What was the state he had reached? 

In regard to: 

1 . Honor and dishonor f To love the one and to be 
indifferent to the other. 

2. Pleasure f Relish for it when attainable; not 
beholden to it when it departs. 

3. Studies and delights of refined life? Enjoyable 
without being indispensable. 

4. Money and its conveniences f To exist in poverty 
without suffering. 

5. Health; sickness ? With equability. 

6. Vigor, power, activity; prison, in chains; i. e., 
working, or standing still ? Ready for the event. 

The peculiarity is: 

a. In Paul's healthful relish for everything. No 
cynic, no anchorite, no solemn growler. 

243 



244 SERMON BRIEFS 

b. In his facility of going cheerfully from one con- 
dition to another. Affairs were to him like a tent 
— spread to-night, struck in the morning, and both 
pleasant. He still found hope, conscience, love and 
peace, wherever he was, 

III. The method by which: 

i. It was such an estimate of inward qualities of 
manhood, as gave him control of the external. 

a. The distinction between organic life and in- 
organic is that the latter is wholly acted upon by 
forces through laws, and the former is itself a force, 
and acts upon its surroundings. 

b. In the vegetable kingdom least, and without 
consciousness. 

c. In the animal kingdom more, and with a pur- 
pose. This purpose and this consciousness aug- 
ment as you ascend the scale, till man is reached, 
as distinguished from all other animals by variety, 
scope, and the nature of the effects which he can 
produce upon surrounding things. 

d. Among men, differences based on the same 
scale; he rises highest who asserts the superiority of 
the human will over circumstances, and can be 
most independent of them. 

e. Paul attained this control by a view of Provi- 
dence which must always be consoling and inspiring. 
The Old Testament regarded God as acting in the 
phenomena of nature. The New Testament speaks, 
throughout, of God as acting through evolution of 
human affairs, or what we call Providence. To Paul, 
events and affairs were supremely guided. Christ 
still lived, and every day's experience was by its hap- 
penings a revelation to him of his dear Master's will. 



REGULATING POWER of DIVINE LIFE 245 

/. But chiefly the world to come, the reality of its 

royalties, the vision right before him, — by that he 

measured the worth of joy and sorrow, praise and 

blame, riches and poverty, pleasures and misfortunes. 

IV. Paul learned this. It was not born in him, but 

earned. It took time, suffering, experience. This 

should encourage those who are seeking for it. 

APPLICATION 

I. The Christianity of our age demands that men 
should learn how to abound; to have and to control all 
power, pleasure, etc, for good uses. 

II. But, again, they must learn how to be abased. 
The nervous, enterprising, venturesome nature of our 
people fills the land with changes. Solidity and per- 
manence are not common. Everything changes, and 
everybody changes. There are fluctuations in business, 
in public affairs, etc., and men need to know how to 
change base. 

tt-lr' What bravery, what heroism, does it require to 
come down! (It would be easier for pride to go to the 
stake.) To do it promptly and thoroughly; to do it 
honestly and frankly, without keeping up pretence; to 
do it bravely, not giving up the battle with misfortune; 
to do it and be happy, as a witness that " a man's life 
consisteth not," etc.! 

[[y We have orders of nobility. If I were king, I 
would create an order for men in adversity living upon 
manhood ! 

III. The need of a great change toward simplicity of 

taste, in learning to derive happiness from simpler 
sources than we do. 



246 SERMON BRIEFS 

i. The continental Europeans, in that respect, are 
happier on a smaller capital than we are. The Anglo- 
Saxons have force, scope, constructive power, with 
very little capacity of enjoying. 

2. In our society arrangements, things tend to a high 
key. In parties, banquets, social entertainments, they 
become more and more laborious, expensive and dreary. 

3. We almost disown the simple enjoyments of Nature. 

4. Egotism in joy — i.e., fastidiousness and exacting- 
ness ■ — increasing. Not tendency to gather pleasure any- 
how, but only on one's own terms. All this, unwhole- 
some; should be checked. 

IV. Demand for development of a broader range of 
faculties. We have too few alternatives. We invest 
happiness in one or two securities. If we fail in one 
we fail altogether. 

No wide sympathies. 

No union with Providence and God's work in the 
world. 

V. Analysis of the great company of grumblers. 

VI. The power of great-heartedness, and of faith, to 
overcome all these. 



LVII 
THE HELP in TROUBLE 



But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, Jacob, and he 
that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I 
have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest 
through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they 
shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou 
shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For 
I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave 
Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. — Isa. 43 : 1-3. 

Troubles are frequently compared to waters; to 
storms which burst overhead; to the waves of the sea; 
to the descent of torrents, rending all barriers and 
sweeping away all obstacles; to the overflow of rivers, 
and the irresistible course of the streams. 

These images are strikingly appropriate, not only for 
the suddenness, the completeness, and the awfulness 
of the rush of mighty waters, but as conveying to all 
who have had experience the despairing sense of the 
weakness of all human strength when opposed to the 
irresistible power of waves and currents of trouble. 

On one occasion, early in my ministry, riding to an 
appointment, I waited a night for the subsidence of the 
White Water, too high for fording. At length it seemed 
practicable. I rode a young and timid horse. When 
in the midst of the stream the waters swirled about him, 
the foam came rushing past him, and the pressure on 

247 



248 SERMON BRIEFS 

his flanks became so alarming to him that, in the very- 
worst part of the stream, he sprang upward, and plunged 
me, burdened with overclothes, into the roaring waters. 
I was whirled down like an eggshell. Water was around 
me, under me, above me. My arm had no more effect 
than if I had pushed at the side of a mountain. There 
was a devouring energy in the flood. I remember to 
this day, vividly, how the water seemed to rejoice, to 
laugh, to triumph, over me, and whirled me about, and 
rushed over me, and that I was like a babe in its tur- 
bulent hands. When I drifted a little out of the cur- 
rent, and gained a shallower place, a foothold, and 
finally the shore, all my strength was gone, and I lay 
panting on the ground, unable so much as to stand. 
Never since that day have I lacked a lively sense of 
the meaning of those precious words, " When thou 
passest through the waters, I will be with thee! " 

But this whole passage points to the fear of evil, as 
well as to the actual presence of it. Indeed, troubles 
not yet come are often more terrible than those which 
have reached us. They act upon the imagination, and 
multiply all the possibilities of evil, and run round and 
round in the same path of anxiety, wearing out the life 
with indefinite forms of mischief. 

The figure of the text has to me a vivid meaning. 
In my frequent travels in the West I often dreaded, 
all day long, the fords which I knew that I must pass. 
Sometimes a whole day's ride had in it a latent anxiety, 
lest the water should be up, lest the ford had shifted, or 
lest darkness should overtake me before reaching it. 

Thus men anticipate trouble, of ill -health, of bereave- 
ment, of losses, of bankruptcy, of unpopularity, of 
broken friendship, of failure of ambitions, and of name- 
less and numberless disappointments. 



THE HELP in TROUBLE 249 

These anticipations of trouble are often far 
harder to bear than the trouble itself, when it comes. 
The real presence dispels illusions, and brings definite- 
ness instead of agonizing uncertainty. 

i. Consider the nature of God, and the character given 
to him, as One who enters into the world's history, 
wants, sorrows and troubles, with a minute and extraor- 
dinary personal interest. 

Contrast it with those views of God which are the 
only ones that material science affords us. Natural 
science has no place in its system for Divine sympathy 
and love. The time will come; but as yet the God 
of science is only an engineer, and not a very present 
help in time of trouble. 

2. Consider the comfort arising from the grounds 
mentioned, on which God befriends all who trust him. 

a. It is not a ground of our deserving. 

b. Nor an act of our successful achievement in our 
own behalf. 

c. It is the parental feeling — i. e. , it is the identi- 
fication of God's heart with that of those who 
suffer. 

" Thou art mine." 

" I have called thee by thy name." 

This is the evidence of intimate knowledge. 

(t^ Illn. There are times when to be called by 
name is one of the most exhilarating of experiences. 
Descending the far side of Wengern Alp, etc., heard 
my name called; friendly association in alien sur- 
roundings. 

In view of this: — 

I. God says to every one who will trust him, respect- 
ing all anticipated troubles, " Fear not." 



250 SERMON BRIEFS 

Men endeavor, by insurance, by various precautions, 
to make head against mischiefs; but while we should 
relax no wise activity, here is that which is best for all: 
Fear not ! 

I tin. Like soldiers that follow Sherman. 

We shall ride down a great many sorrows and cares 
by this very confidence. 

II. God does not promise to ward off all ills, but he 
does promise to come with your troubles. 

i. They shall not be chances, fates, lucks. 

2. He will not leave you to men's caprice and will. 

3. He will not leave you to flood and fire — i. e., to 
the force of natural laws, alone. 

4. He will himself move about your path, as it were, 
and limit, apply, and administer your troubles to you, 
in love and wisdom. 

III. God promises that our affliction shall not destroy 
us. Read verse 2. "Overflow"; " be burned." 

Even if much perishes, you shall be saved. " Out- 
ward man perisheth," etc. 

This assurance is itself half a cure. 

APPLICATION 

1. Many persons cherish such false views of God as 
make their trials harder to bear than they would be if 
left alone. 

a. That he is punishing; 

b. Or, that he has nothing to do but to say, " If 
you had known and kept the law there would have 
been no trouble." 

2. Our troubles, and our fears of trouble, should 
bring us to God, 



THE HELP in TROUBLE 25* 

Illn. Disciples in ship. 

Q^p^ May seem selfish to go then, chiefly. Even so, it 
is better than to perish. 

3. Times of trouble are good times in which to come 
to God for the -first time, good for repentance, good for 
reformation, good for commencing a new life. 



Lvm 

TRUSTING GOD 



Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid. — 
Isa. 12:2. 

The ancients knew little of natural law. They saw 
God in nature, and what we call law they called will or 
power. 

The progress of science does not exclude Divine gov- 
ernment, but reveals it to be by certain methods and 
instruments. The time must come when we shall get 
back again to the earliest standpoint, but with aug- 
mented faith, and see God in nature, the great worker 
through all laws. 

What if a child, hearing it said that a picture was 
made by Inness, should steal into the studio, and see the 
canvas, and see the artist work, with a palette full of 
colors, with brushes, with a knife, etc., and should say, 
"No, the brushes and the pigments made the picture "? 
But was not the painter behind them? 

God is behind the manifestations which men see in 
nature. 

I. What is trusting in God ? It is such a sense of the 
Divine presence and helpfulness as shall strengthen, 
comfort and sustain man with his infirmities in the con- 
flicts of life. 
252 



TRUSTING GOD 253 

i. It may imply and include a wise reliance on God's 
natural laws, as the means of securing blessings. 

Illn. Paths in a garden; streets in a city; roads 
through a country. 

2. But it rises above a sense of mere law to the per- 
sonality of God; not as an engineer, alone, managing 
machinery; rather as a personal friend, clothed with 
sympathies, affections and pities, such as befit strength 
and wisdom, dealing with weakness and ignorance. 

3. It does not need to be precise in its conceptions, 
having a knowledge of how God helps. It is rather 
that confidence, that clinging and loving state, which in 
human life men experience in the presence of those who 
are greater than they are. 

Illn. Sickness, in the presence of a tried, expert 
physician. The patients do not know his opinions nor 
his medicines, but they trust him, blindly, implicitly. 

4. Trusting God would make even the strong stronger, 
the rich richer, and the glad more joyful; but it is the 
peculiar need of the weak, of the discouraged, of men 
in adversity. 

II. It would seem as if a privilege so great would need 
no arguing. It might be supposed that men would at 
least try it; but many who need it prefer to push it 
from them with various objections. 

Obj. 1. "I am getting along well enough. I have 
no need. Why should I trust God? " 

Illn. A ship goes out of port well enough, under the 
care of the less experienced hands, but a storm comes 
on — stress of battle with the waves. Is there not need 
of a captain's direction? The time may come in the 
lives of any of us when we shall need the arm of the 
Almighty to lean upon. 



254 SERMON BRIEFS 

Obj. 2. u Trusting God will not be a substitute for 
activity and a wise use of means; and if I use these I 
shall have no need of trust. It will not pay my bills, 
nor my notes at three o'clock, nor sustain my credit, nor 
support my family." 

We advocate no such trust — a mean and selfish 
running to God, at a pinch, for economic reasons, as 
when a fire breaks out men run to an insurance office; 
nor a trust springing from indolence and thrif tlessness : 
but a trust comprehensive, including one's own respon- 
sibility, wisdom and activity, and causing these to act in 
the sphere of reliance and trust on God. 

For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all 
these things. — Matt. 6: 32. 

Obj. 3. "I cannot imagine that the God of the 
whole earth should interest himself about affairs so 
small. 1 " 

This involves a false sense of true greatness. The 
reasoning is based on principles of mere sensuous mag- 
nitude. Love knows no magnitudes. 

Illn. Parent and babe. The actual government of 
the globe reveals the truth on this subject. 

III. Men may be deterred from going to God by a 
general sense of their own unworthiness. This is per- 
haps a nobler frame of mind. But — 

1. " Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord 
pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame." 
He knows us better than we know ourselves. 

2. The whole economy of moral government revealed 
in Scripture is grace, — succor for the undeserving. 

3. The " great multitude that no man could number," 
whom the seer saw in his vision of heaven, were those 



TRUSTING GOD 255 

who " came out of great tribulation," and who, although 
soiled by sin, had trusted God's promises, and had 
" washed their robes, and made them white in the blood 
of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of 
God." 

IV. Merely to go to God for relief when suffering 
from causes which we have foolishly induced by our 
vanity, our pride, our avarice, or our appetite, without 
any hearty repentance, involving purposes of amend- 
ment, is neither generous nor honorable. But if we go 
to Him with a sincere intention to reform, then we may 
pray, consistently, for help to avert the penalties of 
even our own wrongdoing. Then may we trust, and 
shall not be confounded. 



LIX 
PEACE in CONFLICT 



Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you : not as the 
world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, 
neither let it be afraid. — John 14 : 27. 

1 . Peace! What a strange gift from One who stood on 
the edge of a storm, on the border of that shadow of 
death — that wrestling, anguish, outcry! Before him 
was Gethsemane, its night of griefs, its inward strife, 
its unexplained agony, its master-sorrow that triumphed 
over the body, and trod it down. 

Yet, at his soul's center he had peace, — and to spare! 

2. How strange a gift to them! 

Consider their ignorance, their undevelopment, their 
helplessness, and ail their self -conflicts and dashings 
upon external conditions. What had peace to do with 
them? 

3. What a gift, when one looks out on the world upon 
which they had entered! 

Darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the 
people. They were to go forth with a torch, to rouse 
the broods of darkness and night insects by its light. 
They were to sound a defiance at the gates of every 
royal city, and before every kingdom. Before them 
were revolution, war, persecutions, torture and mar- 
tyrdom. What a gift, before such a prospect! 

256 



PEACE in CONFLICT 257 

4. But it was a peculiar kind of peace. He empha- 
sized — " my peace." What was that? Christ's 
peace was of a quality which existed amid excitement, 
suffering and anguish. Theirs was to be like it. "In 
the world ye have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I 
have overcome the world." 

Let us look at the scattered elements of truth in 
human life which depict this. 

I. There is an experience of a certain steadfastness 
and peace in conflict. 

Contending experiences of pain and pleasure, joy and 
sorrow, rest and disturbance, at the same time, are 
common; but it is always when a superior feeling domi- 
nates and controls a lower one which is in conflict with it. 

Illns. A man may suffer bereavement, and yet dwell 
high and sublime. Faith and Hope! " Sorrow not 
as those who are without hope." 

A man may see his reputation wrecked, and yet look 
down as a nobleman from his castle. 

One may see the storm of bankruptcy and financial 
ruin, and yet, by virtue of his higher moral nature, be pro- 
tected and overshadowed by the world to come. Down 
at the bottom his common nature will yet fret, wrangle, 
and suffer; but at the top his better feelings will sing. 

II. This peculiar peace must be one which can be 
felt in conflict, storm, sorrow, or it is impossible; for 
peace as the result of a perfect condition is not feasible. 

1. Man built tor growth by conflict; and yet 

2. Not in harmony with laws of the world, or of the 
society in which he lives. Too ignorant to be, even 
if good enough. 

3. Not in harmony with self, no relative proportions, 



258 SERMON BRIEFS 

activities, subordinations of reason, conscience, affec- 
tion, appetite, and variations from day to day. 

III. It is a part of the revelation of Christ that there 
is a special provision in the Christian character for this 
very emergency. 

i. If men had peace only on natural conditions, 
almost none ever could, etc. 

2. But while the race is journeying to knowledge and 
harmony, God interferes, and inspires upon the soul 
noble incitement of the higher nature, which helps. 

3. Ob]. If any say, " No, God's administration over 
the world is one of law only," I reply: 

a. Natural law is universal in the material globe. 

b. In the lowest animal tribe appears a voluntary 
principle, or something that enables creatures to 
act, not against law, but with it, and so control it. 

c. This power increases as you go up to man. 

d. It increases in men as they rise to noble types. 

e. Doubtless there are higher beings, yet above 
man ; and this power must be perfect in God — 
who is not driven by fate, nor walks among laws 
as one between walls. 

Note, then: 

1. Power of God to lift the soul to its higher self. 

2. In this state all troubles of the lowest kind — cares, 
disproportions, worldly wants — cured by counter- 
balancing of higher moods. 

3. True sorrows, noble griefs, made sustainable, and 
even joyful, by what Faith sees. (Instances.) 

4. To this the Christian soul should come by prepa- 
ration. The citadel that shall withstand attack, not 
built while enemy is bombarding, but beforehand. Soul's 
refuge of peace to be erected before trouble comes. 



LX 

GOD, for US 



What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who 
can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered 
him up for us all, tow shall he not with him also freely give us all 
things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It 
is God that jusiifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ 
that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right 
hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall 
separate tcs from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, 
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . , 
Nay, in all things we are more than conquerors through him that 
loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor 
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor 
things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall 
be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus 
our Lord. — Rom. 8:31-39, omitting verse 36. 

This passage is the climax of all of Paul's descriptions 
of divine love. It is more. It leaves all descriptions 
before and since quite pale and colorless by its side. 

Illn. As some gorgeous picture on a wall puts out 
all others by it, etc. 

As an experience of a man's own hope and courage 
it is something sublime. Such language of confidence 
in the mouth of even an Alexander or a Caesar would 
seem tumid; yet here was an exile, impoverished, 
unpopular everywhere, of no bodily presence and dig- 
nity, and as -utterly bereft of every kind of power which 

259 



260 SERMON BRIEFS 

men make use of in accomplishing their ends as can be 
conceived; and where else is there such a paean of vic- 
tory? Where else such buoyancy of hope? such an 
overflowing enthusiasm of happiness? And the whole 
of it derived from Paul's relations to an invisible Soul. 

I will, in the first place, trace the line of thought. 
He takes his start at a point where most wings would 
be glad to alight and rest. 

" If God be for us," etc. 

This is the theme; and the specifications are to 
follow. With this brief text, he then surveys the whole 
of creation. But he no longer looks from a human 
standpoint. His point of vision is from God's bosom. 
He imagines himselt lifted into the circle of God's arms, 
and looking forth thence, — as from a tower? a rock of 
refuge? a fortified citadel? Nay, rather, as a child 
would look from its mother's arms, knowing that she 
will never let it go to harm. Her power may be less 
than her love; but God's love and power are co- 
equal; and " If God be for us, who can be against 
us?" 

Now, is He for us? 

i. " He that spared not his own son," etc. The 
whole transaction is an exhibition of love — not a 
provocative to it. Atonement did not make God love. 
He made atonement for the sake of love. 

But, in same book (Rom. 5: 6-10), this very question 
— the priority of Divine love to human excellence — is 
abundantly argued. 

2. Next, the Apostle alleges the life of Christ as evi- 
dence, as his death had been: 

All his work upon earth; 

All his inevitable sympathy, control, and influence, 
in the spirit-world, for us. 



GOD, for US 26* 

3. He then summons, as it were, to his imagination, 
every conceivable power, to question them as to whether 
a soul that is resting in the bosom of God's love can be 
taken away. 

a. Specifications of the greater forms of evil by 
which men have suffered. 

Verse 35. Tribulation or distress, etc. Then, 
Death and Life — as it were, the two great monarchs, 
ruling two great states; angels, principalities — 
spiritual dignitaries in heaven; things present; 
things to come — all the methods of time ; height 
and depth — all variations of space ; nor any 
other creature — whatever is left, after all 
these ! 

I. In this passage Paul opens to us the eternal nature 
of God as revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ. 

a. The availableness of this divine love to us 
may depend on our use of it, on our attitude, 
etc. 

b. But its existence, power, constancy, are not 
affected by anything. 

Illn. The tropics, the Brazilian forests and 
fields, may avail according to the use made of them 
by the population; but the inexhaustibleness of 
their treasures is the same, whether used or neg- 
lected. 

II. The conception of such a nature, brought home to 
each one of us by a realization of faith, with the resources 
of His infinite nature — on our side. 

(£^ 1 . Men first fail in conceiving of such a being as 
God thoroughly in love with his creatures, and organ- 
izing the universe and chording it to their feelings. 



262 SERMON BRIEFS 

2. But then, when a glimmer breaks upon their 
mind, the next difficulty is, to bring home the truth 
that they are objects of such love. 

Why, if such feelings exist, are men so unconscious 
of it? 

a. Illn. The sunlight in a room depends on 
the size and condition of the windows. It may be 
wholly excluded, or partially, etc. So a man's moral 
sensibility will determine his sense of God's love. 

b. In proportion as we grow we have glimpses. 
Every one has hours of high, solemn, intense 
certainty. 

c. And with some these hours have ripened into 
an abiding state. 

III. Then, next, if the world is so governed, why is 
there permitted so much cruelty, sin, confusion? 

i. Must take a large conception of time. The whole 
of it is a moment only. 

2. A larger view of sin; since much of it is only dis- 
ciplining evil, at last sending out great good. 

Illn. Chording instruments of a Philharmonic or- 
chestra, preparatory to rendering Beethoven's " Fifth 
Symphony." 

IV. Whether such a view of God 

i . Does not make sin a very different thing from mere 
law-breaking ? 

2. Whether it does not lay a ground of hope for refor- 
mation ? 

V. Whether such a view does not bring peace, rest, 
composure in all the difficulties of life — enterprises, 
yearnings ? 



GOD, for US 263 

Alone, without God — how dreary, often, the path 
of life. With him how cheerful — even the darkness ! 

VI. It is not a vain thing to trust our God. 

I summon all that by faith have had victory: 

The obscure and neglected; 

The sick and dying; 

The captives and persecuted; 

The martyrs; 

The whole heavenly host. 

Read Rev. 5. 



END 



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